At the Monday Council meeting the Chief of Police made a short presentation about an additional 287g agreement that Manassas is seeking with ICE. I heard what he was saying but obviously didn’t quite get it all as I thought there was some problem with the MOU being negotiated at the jail. Here’s the story:
Manassas and Prince William voted to allow the Jail (ADC) board to engage ICE in order to negotiate a MOU that would allow the ADC to process criminal aliens for deportation. This MOU is moving ahead unhindered.
What the Chief was talking about was utilizing the ADC MOU in order to train some of our local task force officers so that they too would be ICE trained. The Feds will not allow this. In order to get our local guys trained up, we need our own MOU. I talked to the Chief this morning and this is moving ahead. The task force officers would serve as our own in-house ICE experts available to our entire department.
All in all, sounds like a good idea and I thank the Chief for his proactive attention to this detail.
March 15, 2007 at 12:37 pm
I hope to get you a copy of the Herndon MOU soon which the city can use as a template, since it’s already been blessed by ICE and passed legislative muster already. It might be a lot easier than starting out from scratch, and will certainly be quicker.
March 15, 2007 at 1:01 pm
I’d be happy to have it!
March 16, 2007 at 5:42 am
Andy,
More ICE trained officers is a good thing. One thing I would like to know: will Chief Skinner allow the officers to use their certifications while performing normal police duties (defined as when they are not performing duties directly related to the gang task-force)?
Say, for instance, Officer Smith is assigned to the NoVA gang task force. During a task force raid, they net some MS-13 gang members, in this country illegally. Offcer Smith would use his training to process them for deported. Great.
Now, Say say there is no operations going on, does Officer Smith pull a regular patrol shift, and during which will process a non-gang-related felons for deportation when apprehended?
The point I am driving at is that however many offcers we have trained, we should use these resources to the fullest, and not artifically limit the cases to only those classified as gang-related. I can understand the Chief’s concerns that the local illegal populations may be worried that Manassas PD will conduct sweeps where they are pulling illegals off the streets and deporting them, and how this could keep illegals from reporting crimes. I don’t agree that the concerns of the illegals in Manassas should be taken into consideration, but I can understand where the Cheif is coming from. I would be very disappointed if we limit the abilities of our ICE trained officers to just gang-related cases.
In the end, I guess having any MPD officers using the program is a step forward, so on this I commend the Chief. I just hope that it doesn’t end here, and we continue to build upon success.
March 16, 2007 at 7:48 am
What I took away from the conversation is that his intent is to use the ICE trained officers as department-wide resources.
March 16, 2007 at 8:30 am
If that is the case, then this is great news. Good move by the Chief.
March 16, 2007 at 7:58 pm
Andy, at the budget meeting, Chief Skinner presented a request for additional officers to come on board with the MCPD. Would these new officers be trained as ICE officers?
March 18, 2007 at 10:01 am
I don’t know….
December 4, 2011 at 2:50 pm
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