>>couldn't post bail
See this I do not understand. ICE puts forth specific procedures for processing illegals. Now if you are arrested under this suspicion the jail/facility has 12 hours max to put their fingerprints through the FBI and ICE databases. FBI is instant usually, ICE will give an instant (usually) result BUT they have the option to flag the person for investigation, which gives them 30 days to verify that the person is or is not an illegal. In many cases the illegal is already in the system from prior arrest and is immediately put into processing.
Once the person is flagged as an illegal the facility has 30 days to transfer the person to the nearest facility that handles immigration. For example say an illegal is arrested in Grand Rapids, MI. They must be transferred to Battle Creek, MI within 30 days for initial processing. After initial processing they go to another facility (in my example, Detroit, MI) where they are assigned what is called an "A Number" (A = Alien) and this is their number to identify them in the ICE system.
The federal mandate from confirmation to A number is 45 days. Once someone has an A number they are entitled, if they can meet the requirements, to post an immigration bond. The amount is set by the federal immigration court in DC and they MUST use an immigration bonding agency like Action Immigration. These bonds are always secured by a credit card or home mortgage that is instantly collected if someone misses a single court date. That is how we get to the previous arrest, most people do not show up or some back after deportation. I once processed the same guy through deportation 9 times in a 2 year period. He took it as an excuse to see his family, like a government funded vacation.
The point is how did she sit there for four months? Was it the jail, or was it ICE? Someone screwed up big time. Kent County Jail in Grand Rapids is notorious for failing to run the prints through ICE in the mandated time frame, and people who are illegal bond out as citizens constantly. I bailed someone out there once that was flagged two days later as a fugitive from Haiti. I would have bet my life on that but the jail swore he came back clean from ICE after being there for 15 days. I caught him two states away on a Greyhound and took him back to KC.
On the flip side people get flagged all the time. For deportation all illegals are moved from the holding facility to DC for out processing, and then transported (for hispanics) to Texas, usually Nuvo Lerado (might be spelling that wrong). We have been a few hours from Lerado before and got a call that the court made a mistake and one of the people was not to be turned over. A few hours later and that call would have been pointless.
Like I said the system is flawed, but we can't let them stay.
