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Custody deal emerges from summit

FLAGSTAFF - U.S. immigration officials agreed Tuesday to pick up more than 500 illegal border crossers who can be released from state prisons, according to the head of Arizona Department of Corrections. Dora Schriro said a closed-door summit Tuesday of federal, state and local law-enforcement officials enabled her to finally hammer out a deal with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, to get those inmates. She also said a procedure will be set up to expedite the future transfer of people who commit crimes while in the United States illegally. Schriro said state law permits her agency to release some criminals who are illegal entrants before they complete their full sentences. But the catch is, they have to be turned over to ICE. And Schriro said that has proven difficult. "I'm not sure what all the reasons are," Schriro said. "But the efforts in the past have appeared to us as episodic." Schriro said the deal involves more than just a commitment by ICE to be more responsive. She said her agency will take on some chores that now fall to ICE in hopes of expediting the process, such as completing certain required paperwork. "It's in the state's best interest to do that," she said. That interest is financial: Each of the 527 inmates who could be released and deported are costing Arizona taxpayers more than $50 a day to house, guard and feed. The deal was the only concrete action to come out of the summit in Flagstaff. But Maricopa County Attorney Andrew Thomas said participants avoided the one issue that would make a real difference: Allowing state and local police to enforce federal immigration law - a measure vetoed earlier this year by the governor. Thomas said that would not have happened if the public had been allowed into the summit. That includes 22 legislators who showed up but were told by Department of Public Safety publicist Rick Knight their presence was not welcome. That led to a 75-minute standoff in front of the building. Senate President Ken Bennett, R-Prescott, said the Democratic governor's executive order calling for the summit included issues of potential changes to state law as well as the possible need for more money. He said it is wrong to lock out the people who could make that happen. Rep. Ben Miranda, D-Phoenix, said the group of more than 100 conferees is, essentially, a public body created by the governor - one Miranda, an attorney, said must comply with the state's Open Meeting Law. Knight, however, said the legal advice the DPS got says otherwise. The situation became tense as Rep. Russell Pearce, R-Mesa, asked whether Knight would arrest him if he tried to enter. Knight said he would not - but he hoped that lawmakers would honor the wishes of DPS Director Roger Vanderpool, who organized the meeting, to keep outsiders out. Knight also said if legislators were admitted, he would have no excuse to keep out reporters. Bennett and House Speaker Jim Weiers opted to tell their members to back down. Gov. Janet Napolitano's publicist, Jeanine L'Ecuyer, had said ICE would not participate in a public meeting. But Roberto Medina, the agency's special agent in charge, later told reporters that wasn't the case. Medina, however, said he agreed with Vanderpool's decision to keep outsiders out. He said the summit produced "some reasonable ideas we can work with."