Database Is Tool in Deporting Fugitives

A federal judge has dismissed another suit filed by the National Council of La Raza and other civil rights and immigrant rights organizations seeking to have the civil files purged, but that case is under appeal.

The database contains about 247,500 Immigration and Customs Enforcement warrants, according to the agency. More than half are administrative warrants for people who have old deportation orders, and the rest are records of deported felons.

The International Association of Chiefs of Police and the Major Cities Chiefs Association have opposed the inclusion of noncriminal immigration warrants in the database. A handful of jurisdictions have devised policies regarding the immigration warrants.

In Houston, for example, officials reached an arrangement with the local U.S. attorney and immigration offices in which the police department agrees to arrest people on administrative immigration warrants only if federal authorities intend to file criminal charges against them.

At least two other jurisdictions, Chapel Hill, N.C., and New Haven, Conn., have decided not to enforce the immigration warrants, saying that acting on them would burden them with what is essentially a failed federal government policy and would potentially alienate victims and witnesses of crimes.

Brenda Cruz was a victim of a home invasion in 2002. She called the police in that case, which remains unsolved. Last month, after discovering that someone had broken into her van, she decided against reporting it.

"I haven't called them, because who knows how many questions they're going to ask," she said recently, sitting in living room of her mother's Hyattsville apartment, where she now lives.

In letters Hernandez wrote to Cruz from a jail in Salisbury, Md., before he was deported, he urged her to file their federal income taxes on time and asked her not to tell the children that he was getting deported. But the 5-year-old found out, Cruz said.

"He used to be a playful boy," Cruz said. "Now he doesn't want to leave the house. He's terrified of the police."

Cruz also came to the country illegally and is gathering documents to apply for a visa for victims of crime.

Weeks after Hernandez was taken into custody, his sister went to District Court in Rockville with his traffic citation in hand. She paid the $90 fee to relieve her brother of outstanding fines.

The officer hasn't submitted the citation to the court, according to court records, probably under the assumption that it would go unpaid.

The cashier's office accepted the payment anyway.

Staff writer Spencer S. Hsu contributed to this report.