$1M enforcement office expected to open in '09

By PERRY SWANSON
THE GAZETTE
January 19, 2008 - 2:06AM

The number of federal immigration agents based in Colorado Springs will jump next year from two to 10 as the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency sets up a new office here, officials said Friday.

The office is expected to open in February 2009 and cost about $1 million, said Rep. Doug Lamborn, R-Colo. The announcement caps more than two years of lobbying by Lamborn and other elected officials for increased immigration enforcement in the Pikes Peak region. The other backers included Sen. Wayne Allard, R-Colo., El Paso County Commissioner Jim Bensberg and Sheriff Terry Maketa.

Government officials had complained that illegal immigrants are straining local resources, including the county jail, where up to 100 suspected illegal immigrants are in custody on any given day. The jail is so crowded that many inmates sleep in a tent outside the main building on East Las Vegas Street.

ICE spokesman Carl Rusnok on Friday confirmed that the agency plans to set up an office here, but he had no details. The agency, part of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, is responsible for catching and deporting illegal immigrants. It investigates other crimes, including money laundering, identity theft, drug trafficking, illegal exports and attacks on public infrastructure such as power plants.

Lamborn said alleviating strain on the jail should be the first priority for the new ICE agents.

"The immediate need is to address those that have committed a crime and make sure they're sent out of the country," he said.

ICE operations in the region could expand later with a detention facility for holding suspected illegal immigrants, Lamborn said. ICE has detention facilities in Aurora and Pueblo.

ICE agents have been working out of the Police Department since 2003.

No one knows how many illegal immigrants are in Colorado Springs or nationally. The Department of Homeland Security issued a report in August that estimated the nationwide number at 11.5 million in January 2006. The Pew Hispanic Center estimates 11.1 million people were in the country illegally in 2005, including 225,000 to 275,000 in Colorado. The center identified Colorado as one of several states drawing new illegal immigrants, although others, including California, continue to have the highest numbers.

The potential effect of having eight additional immigration enforcement agents and an ICE office in Colorado Springs wasn't immediately clear. The government does not publish figures on how individual ICE offices perform, such as the number of arrests.

Nationally, agents who track down illegal immigrants and immigration fugitives arrested 30,408 people in the last fiscal year, which ended Sept. 30. That was nearly double the number arrested in the previous year, but it left 595,000 fugitives that agents haven't found, according to a December report from Homeland Security.

Bensberg, who was among the first to press for a local ICE office, said the agents should have plenty to keep busy.

"They don't have to go any farther than our county jail," he said.

CONTACT THE WRITER: 636-0187 or perry.swanson@gazette.com