San Antonio Police Chief Bill McManus says he has met with Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials to clarify the roles of local and federal law enforcement in cases where illegal immigrants are found in San Antonio, News Radio 1200 WOAI reports.
The SAPD is under fire for releasing 12 illegal immigrants, ten men and two women, who were found at the scene of the arrest of a man who was alleged to be smuggling immigrants in the trailer of his 18 wheeler.
McManus says he made the decision to handle the incident as a 'state crime,' which meant the immigrants were treated as 'victims,' not as criminals.
"Because it was handled at the state level, we did not have authority to detain them," McManus said.
He says unlike the incident in July, where ten illegal immigrants died when they were packed into the back of a sweltering 18 wheeler and the case was turned over to ICE, in this case nobody was injured, the trucker was in custody, and SAPD was in control of the scene. In the July case, the illegal immigrants were arrested by immigration authorities, held in detention, and then processed for deportation after the trucker pled guilty.
"This is not necessarily the way that every case will be handled going forward," McManus said. "We handled it that way because of the situation."
McManus said two immigrant rights groups were called, as part of an agreement made last year on how to handle situations like this
.One of the groups that was called, RAICES, is praising the SAPD's handling of the situaiton.
"If the SAPD is perceived as an agency that will turn over every undocumented immigrant they receive to immigration, they will not be able to do their job," said Jonathan Ryan, the attorney and head of RAICES.
McManus says the immigrants were turned over to Catholic Charities, which released them.
One former SAPD officer, who has been involved in immigration operations, blasted the chief's decision.
"They let both the witnesses and physical evidence in a human trafficking case walk free with no background checks to determine who they really were. You're a tax payer, is that what you pay the police to do?" he asked.
Even though San Antonio has claimed it is not a 'Sanctuary City,' many accused the SAPD of adopting sanctuary like policies.
The Texas Attorney General's Office says SB 4, the controversial bill passed last year which bans 'Sanctuary Cities' is 'largely enforceable,' and it said if a complaint is filed in this case, it will inestigate.
But the part which is not enforceable is language allowing local police officers to demand proof of legal residence, essentially acting as immigration officers.
Another former SAPD officer said avoiding taking on the duties of federal officers.
"What are they supposed to do, find out if everybody they pull over on a traffic stop has paid their income taxes?" this former officer asked.'
McManus says he was within his authority to do what he did.
"We have both state and federal concurrent jurisdiction, it could have gone federal, it could have gone state," he said. "Because we had twelve people sitting on the corner, and we had our officers all queued up, I made the decision to handle it on the state level."
Many police officers, including McManus, have said that having local police enforce federal immigration law will make it more difficult for the police to stop and solve crimes, because immigrants will be less likely to talk with police because they're afraid that will lead to deportation.
But other law officers say it is immigrants who are more likely to be victims of crimes committed by people in the U.S. illegally, and failing to enforce immigration statutes is actually a discriminatory practice which leaves vulnerable immigrant populations at risk.