Saturday, October 14, 2006

Illegal immigrants released from jail, due to lack of space

This proves what many say: we can't round up all the illegal immigrants, we aren't equipped to detain them. Even 12 was too many here. DP

WPDE.com: A dozen illegal immigrants busted on Interstate 95 in Florence County Thursday night have been released. That's because Charleston County jail officials say they had nowhere to put them.

Thursday night, deputies stopped a pick up truck where I-95 and I-20 connect in Florence County for a minor traffic violation. Inside, deputies say they arrested 13 illegal immigrants in that truck.

Police say the driver had cocaine and he's still in jail in Florence County. The 12 others were taken to the Charleston County jail by agents with the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE. The Public Information Officer for the Charleston County Detention Center, Captain John Clark, said that they had no choice but to let the men go because they already had 115 other people to book and didn't have the time to adequately take care of the immigrants.

Clark says he does not know what happened to the illegal immigrants once they left his detention center. Officials with ICE would not comment because this is an on-going investigation. Wednesday night, Florence County deputies arrested nine illegal immigrants, so that's a total of 22 in just two days.

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