WPCNR POLICE GAZETTE. From Westchester County Department of Communicatins (EDITED) April 24, 2007: County Executive Andy Spano demanded today in an official statement that offenders who are in this country illegally should be deported immediately upon sentencing and not remain in this county at taxpayer expense. He also asked Senators Hillary Clinton and Charles Schumer for additional resources to deal with the alien criminal population.
According to Spano, the county Probation Department is currently supervising about 700 undocumented aliens who have been convicted of a crime – many of these crimes violent in nature. They can be legally deported, but in most cases the federal Immigration and Custom Enforcement (ICE) fails to act.
“Each year, the county continues to dedicate an extraordinary amount of its limited resources on the supervising of these offenders and the management of their cases, all at the expense of other worthy local criminal justice initiatives,” Spano complained. “Our taxpayers are footing the bill for this. Beyond Probation, it further puts a strain on the District Attorney’s office, our court system, our local police departments and our school districts.”
· Currently on the streets of
· Conservatively, the cost to the county is several million dollars annually.
Beyond the cost, Spano said, public safety is at risk. Some of the criminals were convicted of violent crimes and others have committed violent crimes while on probation, including rape, assault with intent to cause physical injury, weapons sale, attempted robbery and drug sales, to name just a few.
“Having these individuals in our communities is a serious and ongoing threat to the safety of our residents,” Spano said. “Many of these people are serious, violent offenders and I want them out of our communities and in federal detention centers now.”
While the county has collaborated with ICE in special efforts to locate and deport certain convicted violent offenders, including many guilty of sex offenses, much more must be done, Spano said. He said that ICE should be given the resources to do its job better, and called upon the county’s federal delegation to intervene with the Bush Administration to make this happen.
He gave the following examples to show how serious the problem is:
- In 2001, Jose Rocha, an illegal alien, while attending a wedding reception, fired two shots from a .25 caliber handgun he had brought with him. Sentenced to probation, he could have been immediately deported. But it took the federal government more than four years to take him into custody.
- Lino Vazquez was sentenced to probation in 2005 after pleading guilty to selling drugs to an undercover officer. He could have been deported at once, but the federal government delayed acting. In 2006, Vazquez pled guilty as charged to raping a 13 year old girl with whom he had been having sexual intercourse since she was 12, a crime for which he is now in prison.
- Edward O’Donnell Jr., an undocumented alien, was sentenced to probation for 1999 crimes in which he broke glass windows of a bar with a metal bat, swung the bat at other patrons hitting one on the arm and choked a police office while resisting arrest. Immigration never deported him. A warrant has been issued, because he has absconded.
- Llodjan Lala was arrested in 2005 for incidents in which he struck his victim in the back of head with the passenger-side-view mirror of his truck as he drove by the victim. Later that day, Lala beat the victim with a two-foot concrete drill bit and proceeded to kicked him while he lay on the ground. Sentenced to probation, he was rearrested a year later in New York City for assaulting a person with a highball glass fracturing his skull and cutting his face from his eye to his ear. He was released on bail and has absconded; warrants are pending from courts in
In his letters to Sens. Hillary Clinton and Chuck Schumer and Reps. Nita Lowey, John Hall and Elliot Engel, Spano writes: “I am requesting your assistance in enhancing the safety of Westchester residents as well as in reducing the financial strain being place on our criminal justice system and our local taxpayers for a function that is clearly a federal responsibility….The strain on county resources to arrest, prosecute, investigate, supervise and incarcerate undocumented and resident aliens is enormous.”
