By Manny Gonzales
The Denver Post
COLORADO — In its first month, the Colorado State Patrol’s Immigration Enforcement Unit had results that “exceed anyone’s expectations,” according to the executive director of the Department of Public Safety.
In an Aug. 31 memo to Gov. Bill Ritter, public-safety director Peter Weir reported that the team in July encountered more than 150 illegal immigrants, including four identified as aggravated felons and 15 other criminals.
Public safety officials expect the unit’s monthly report for August to have virtually the same results, spokesman Lance Clem said.
The first month was “noteworthy and remarkably successful in pursuing both traffic-safety and immigration-enforcement goals,” Weir wrote. “I am confident that the public’s expectations and legislative mandates are being fulfilled completely.”
A total of 87 people were detained in cases that included overloaded vehicles transporting illegal immigrants and illegal drug and alcohol use by drivers and passengers, the progress report showed.
None of the new unit’s cases have worked their way through the judicial system.
State lawmakers created the immigration unit in 2006, giving it the power that, in essence, “deputizes” unit troopers into the federal law enforcement role of cracking down on human trafficking on state highways, Clem said.
While the State Patrol declined to give a county-by-county breakdown of where illegal immigrants were apprehended, Clem said much of the patrolling has focused on Interstate 70.
“I-70 in particular has been targeted mainly because it’s one of the highways in the state that has a bad safety record,” Clem said. “Troopers in this unit are focused on pulling over vehicles for safety violations.”
The unit became operational July 1 with 19 troopers and three sergeants around the state. Members assigned to the unit only enforce immigration law while in the course of performing their normal state trooper duties, and the unit has not affected any of the agency’s other operations, officials say.
These troopers do not conduct immigration-related raids on workplaces.
Earlier this month, The Denver Post reported that in one stop made by the unit in western Colorado, officers were forced to release 18 suspected illegal immigrants after the Department of Immigration and Customs Enforcement failed to respond to the patrol’s request for assistance.
State Patrol officials maintain that the unit’s formation didn’t come from a surge of illegal immigration to the state or any new shortcomings in federal enforcement. Rather, it’s that the issue has become so highly charged politically, Master Trooper Ron Watkins said.
“Hopefully, the message this will send to those who traffic these illegal immigrants is that it might be a good idea to avoid Colorado from now on,” Watkins said.
Copyright 2007 The Denver Post