{"id":2083,"date":"2014-11-17T05:28:04","date_gmt":"2014-11-17T10:28:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.shorebeat.com\/brick\/?p=2083"},"modified":"2014-11-16T22:53:14","modified_gmt":"2014-11-17T03:53:14","slug":"ocean-county-jail-setting-free-inmates-with-immigration-detainers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/2014\/11\/ocean-county-jail-setting-free-inmates-with-immigration-detainers\/","title":{"rendered":"Ocean County Jail Freeing Inmates With Immigration Detainers"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"The<\/a>

The Ocean County Justice Complex, Toms River, N.J. (Photo: Daniel Nee)<\/p><\/div>\n

The Ocean County Jail is one of four county jails in New Jersey that is setting free inmates with detainers from the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE), a report out over the weekend said.<\/p>\n

Ocean County recently joined Union, Burlington and Camden counties in discharging inmates who make bail despite the immigration detainer, an NJ.com report<\/a> revealed.<\/p>\n

The decision to ignore the detainers comes after the Third Circuit Court of Appeals ruled last March that ICE detainers are requests \u2013 not orders \u2013 and jails can choose whether or not to hold inmates based on them. The case was brought by the American Civil Liberties Union on behalf of a\u00a0Middlesex County\u00a0man who was held on an ICE detainer. Though the detainer was eventually voided since the man was Puerto Rican \u2013 thus, an American citizen \u2013 the court weighed in on the overall issue of detainers.<\/p>\n

Since then, four of New Jersey\u2019s county jails have chosen not to hold inmates based on the detainers. Union County authorities outwardly advertised their decision, saying the policy contributed to \u201csenseless family separations\u201d that do not \u201cpromote trust between immigrant communities and police departments.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the NJ.com report, Ocean County authorities made no such statements, but simply referenced the county\u2019s policy.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is the policy of this department that individuals shall not be housed in this facility solely on an ICE detainer or warrant,\u201d the county\u2019s policy says, as quoted<\/a> by NJ.com. \u201cNor shall they be committed to this facility by a law enforcement agency without an accompanying commitment issued by a judge.\u201d<\/p>\n

The ACLU has applauded the decision by the four counties.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is an improvement when even one fewer person is unlawfully held in jail,\u201d said ACLU-NJ Senior Staff Attorney Alexander Shalom, in a statement<\/a> issued last summer.\u00a0\u201cEven so, counties that honor any detainer requests not only ignore the constitutional rights of detainees, but they also shortchange community trust and public safety, all while risking enormous financial consequences. Union County\u2019s approach serves all of the county\u2019s residents and serves as a model for the state and nation.\u201d<\/p>\n

The counterpoint comes from organizations who oppose illegal immigration. They say the ACLU has been bullying\u00a0counties against recognizing the detainers with threats of lawsuits. While the court has ruled that\u00a0detainer requests do\u00a0not amount to court orders that compel\u00a0authorities to keep someone in jail, opponents of the policy point to the fact that a law was broken that landed the subject of the detainer in jail in the first place, and they may be illegally in the county pending a deportation hearing.<\/p>\n

The NJ.com report<\/a> said ICE\u00a0deported about 4,361\u00a0noncitizens from the New Jersey\u00a0last year, about half of whom were criminals.<\/p>\n

<\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Ocean County Jail is one of four county jails in New Jersey that is setting free inmates with detainers from the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE), a report out over the weekend said. Ocean County recently joined Union, Burlington and Camden counties in discharging inmates who make bail despite the immigration detainer, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2084,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[3],"tags":[24,574,575,573],"class_list":["post-2083","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-police-fire-courts","tag-brick-nj-news","tag-ice","tag-illegal-immigration","tag-ocean-county-jail"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/11\/ocean_county_court.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pgt2Ft-xB","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2083","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2083"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2083\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2084"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2083"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2083"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/shorebeat.com\/brick\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2083"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}