Few undocumented immigrants face Collier felony charges

“Bad hombres” helped Donald Trump win the presidency.

His assertion that America was under attack by violent criminals coming across the southern border as undocumented immigrants resonated with a portion of the electorate, helping him defeat Hillary Clinton in November.

But a review of three months of Collier County felony cases indicates undocumented immigrants make up only a slightly larger percentage of the cases here than their portion of the population.

Collier County has about 22,000 undocumented immigrants, according to an estimate from the Migration Policy Institute. That's about 6.3 percent of Collier County’s 348,000 population.

Undocumented immigrants make up 7.6 percent of the 326 people arraigned on felony charges during the three-month period from December through February, a proportion that is about 17 percent greater than their estimated population.

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Of 326 people arraigned, 25 were identified as undocumented immigrants, according to the Naples Daily News review of cases. A felony arraignment appearance means only that the person has been charged with a crime. It is not proof of guilt.

Information was unavailable in two cases of defendants born outside the U.S. Of the rest, 273 were citizens, and 26 were immigrants with legal status.

Stories such as the one of Kate Steinle, murdered in San Francisco by an often deported undocumented immigrant, support the premise that Americans are falling victim to people who by rights shouldn’t be here.

Trump used the term “bad hombres” multiple times to describe the problem and bolster his case to build a wall to make America safer.

“One of my first acts will be to get all of the drug lords, all of the bad ones, we have some bad, bad people in this country that have to go out. We have some bad hombres here and we’re going to get them out,” he said at the Oct. 19 presidential debate.

But Collier's highest-profile case in recent months involving an undocumented immigrant likely wouldn't have been affected by a southern border wall. Yuzo Nishi, accused in December of stabbing his mother to death in the East Naples mobile home they shared, is an undocumented immigrant from Japan.

The immigration status of individuals in the criminal justice system is considered confidential information, protected from disclosure just like a Social Security number or medical condition. That policy imposed by Immigration and Customs Enforcement dates to early 2009 under former President George W. Bush and stifles attempts to learn what crimes might have been committed by those here illegally.

But through court documents and interviews, the Daily News determined the legal status of nearly every defendant arraigned in felony court in Collier County over the three-month period in late 2016 and early 2017. The information often is included in criminal court files.

ICE, which plays a large role in enforcing the country’s immigration law, doesn’t keep detailed statistics on the number of times undocumented immigrants are charged with crimes in the U.S.

An ICE report covering the 2016 fiscal year shows that 92 percent of the more than 60,000 people deported from the interior of the country had been convicted of a crime. Of the 175,000 people detained and deported at or near the border, 58 percent had previous criminal convictions.

Defense attorneys who work with immigrants, legal and otherwise, say it is important to look at the types of crimes being committed by those here illegally.

“The illegal immigrants, the majority of cases I see are driver license violations,” said attorney Josh Faett, who represents a few of the 326 defendants.

Jerry Berry, another attorney representing some of those arraigned, agreed.

“People who are here illegally, generally in court, are license charges. They can’t get a license and they have to get around,” he said.

Driver's license violations are usually misdemeanors. Only after repeated arrests for license violations are the cases bumped to felony status.

Of the 25 Collier felony defendants who are undocumented immigrants, six were charged with license violations.

Still, accusations of violent crimes were present and in slightly greater numbers. Five of the defendants in the country illegally were charged with aggravated battery, one with domestic violence, one with attempted murder and one with murder. Six cases involved possession of illegal drugs. There were no charges of drug trafficking.

The largest group of felony defendants here as undocumented immigrants, 16, came from Mexico. Four are from Guatemala, two from Cuba, one from Honduras, Nishi from Japan, and one’s native country was unknown.

Immigration hawks can point to each crime alleged to have been committed by an undocumented resident as one less crime than would have occurred if the immigrant never came here.

Ron Martinelli, a retired police detective from San Jose, Calif., has studied undocumented immigrants and crime, and has written for publications including USA Today. His research asserts that undocumented immigrants commit crimes at higher rates than the general population. In an April article in The Hill newspaper, based in Washington, D.C., he noted Florida is an exception, and he can’t say why.

Tighter immigration controls would result in a reduction in crime, he says.

“Had these criminals not been in our country illegally, these crimes, the victimization of our citizens and the costs of their crimes borne by American taxpayers could have been completely avoided,” he said.

“We have enough problems with crime right now in the U.S. with American citizens," Martinelli said. "Why do you want to advance open borders? Why do we want to bring in this extra element? It’s not that I don’t have sympathy. Some of these countries are in terrible states. But that shouldn’t be our nation’s problem.”

Although ICE can’t quantify crimes committed by undocumented immigrants, the agency heavily publicizes its efforts to deport criminals.

An ICE report released Wednesday indicates arrests of undocumented immigrants are up 38 percent over last year, a reflection of more aggressive deportation policies implemented by Trump. Deportations of those simply accused of a crime but not yet convicted are up sharply under the new policy, the report indicates.

Derek Verderamo, a Naples defense attorney who works with immigrants, sees the effects of the Trump administration’s more aggressive stance toward illegal immigrants accused of crimes.

“I’ve been doing this a long time. I’ve never seen an individual picked up during the pendency of the case for deportation. I’m seeing it first-hand now,” he said.

A Jan. 25 executive order signed by Trump created a new division in ICE, the Victims of Immigration Crime Engagement, or VOICE. Its mission is to support victims of crimes committed by undocumented residents.

One of its objectives is to “provide quarterly reports studying the effects of victimization by criminal aliens present in the United States.”

Berry conceded he doesn’t have data to back it up, but he thinks he knows what those reports will show. In his experience, victims of crimes committed by undocumented residents tend to be immigrants, people who live and work in the same communities.

“That doesn’t make it OK,” Berry said, but it does cast a different light on the narrative that criminal immigrants prey on the greater community.

“The people living in Port Royal or Pelican Bay, they don’t have to fear the folks here illegally,” Berry said.

Reporters Ryan Mills and Patrick Riley contributed to this report.