Referrals of arrestees to ICE by local police
| Submitted | Nov. 12, 2010 |
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Communications
From: Barry Rafkind
To Whom It May Concern:
Pursuant to the state Freedom of Information Act, G.L.M. c.4, €7, clause 26th, I hereby request the following records:
The number of ICE referrals made by the SPD since Jan 2009 grouped by month, year, and reason for arrest, reason for referral, and whether ICE took custody of the arrestee or not.
I also request that, if appropriate, fees be waived as we believe this request is in the public interest, as suggested but not stipulated by the recommendations of the Massachusetts Supervisor of Public Records. The requested documents will be made available to the general public free of charge as part of the public information service at MuckRock.com, processed by a representative of the news media/press and is made in the process of news gathering and not for commercial usage.
In the event that fees cannot be waived, I would be grateful if you would inform me of the total charges in advance of fulfilling my request. I would prefer the request filled electronically, by e-mail attachment if available or CD-ROM if not.
Thank you in advance for your anticipated cooperation in this matter. I look forward to receiving your response to this request within 10 business days, as the statute requires.
Sincerely,
Barry Rafkind
Filed via MuckRock.com
185 Beacon St. #3
Somerville, MA 02143
Daytime: (857) 488- 3081
E-mail: requests@muckrock.com
From: Somerville Police Department
Mr. Rafkind,
In response to your Public Records Inquiry, I can provide you with the following preliminary information.
First, we do not track notifications or other agencies as a field that we can search. Most notifications made to ICE come in the form of electronic fingerprints that are sent at the time of arrest and are required by law. On some occasions, but not often, we will be notified by either the FBI or ICE directly that a person that we have in custody has been previously deported or perhaps defaulted on a deportation hearing and a detainer will be forwarded to us, preventing the subject from being bailed. Documents are then sent along with the prisoner to Court and handled by the Court. We do not track this as it is not a Somerville Police record.
In order to comply with your request, we did a word search on our reporting system, inquiring about the words, Immigration, ICE and detainer. In all, one or more of those words appear in a total of fourteen reports. In five of those reports, the use of the word was not part of a notification to any other agency. In fact, in most cases, the word was immigration and it was spoken by the victim or witness and not referenced by the police. In the remaining nine reports, the Somerville Police Department initiated a notification to ICE. Here is the breakdown.
10011972 4/15/10 Trafficking heroin
10006073 2/26/10 Trafficking heroin
9044351 12/3/09 Multiple house breaks
9034687 9/18/09 Drugs / School zone violation
9031038 8/21/09 Prostitution
9024928 7/8/09 Prostitution
9007040 2/25/09 Assault with a dangerous weapon
9002597 1/21/09 Drugs / School zone violation
9001753 1/14/09 Drugs / School zone violation
Please be advised that these reports do contain names and some limited other information that is not public and must be redacted before public release. If you are interested in receiving copies of these reports, either paper or electronic, we will not waive the required fees. You will also be responsible to pay the cost of review and redacting of non-public information in advance by the lowest paid employee authorized to do this work which would be done outside of normal business hours. I estimate that this will take one hour.
Please let me know if you if you wish to go forward with your request or if what I have provided you is sufficient.
Thank you.
Paul J. Upton
Deputy Chief
617 625-1600 ext. 7203
pupton@police.somerville.ma.us
From: Barry Rafkind
Hello,
How much will it cost to obtain electronic copies of the reports in redacted form?
Thanks,
Barry
From: Somerville Police Department
Mr. Rafkind,
Each report has minimum of two pages, some have three. Based upon a request for nine reports, I estimate that the cost for the reports would be $20.00 It appears that the amount of redacting that will be required is minimal and only involves four reports of the referenced reports. Therefore, we will be able to do the required redacting or deleting without having to do it outside normal business hours.
If you wish to continue with this request, we will prepare the documents for your pick-up and I will advise you when they are ready. I will inform you of the final cost, but it will be about $20.00 based on the total number of pages. After you pay the fee and receive the hard copies, I will forward electronic versions of the reports if you so request.
Paul J. Upton
Deputy Chief
617 625-1600 ext. 7203
pupton@police.somerville.ma.us
From: Somerville Police Department
From: Somerville Police Department
From: Somerville Police Department
From: Somerville Police Department
From: Somerville Police Department
From: Somerville Police Department
From: Somerville Police Department
Good morning Barry,
Here are the electronic copies of the reports that you requested. As
stated, this is based on a word search of reports using the terms
Immigration, detainer and ICE, I.C.E. To the best of my knowledge,
these reflect all of the Somerville Police reports where we made a
notification to Immigration authorities. As a reminder, please remember
that there may be some other detainers that were issued but were not
based on any type of voluntary notification by the Somerville Police.
Please let me know if you want hard copies. If so, I will make them
available for pick-up at the Records window.
If you have any questions, please feel free to call me.
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