Suspects Chafing in Ankle Monitors

One morning last fall, Juan Chavez awoke to pounding on his door. Immigration agents had come looking for someone else, but when Chavez couldn’t prove he was in the country legally, they arrested him.

They released him several hours later, but only after attaching an electronic band to his ankle to make sure he didn’t flee the area. The San Jose resident wore the anklet for 10 weeks, concealed beneath one of his cowboy boots.

“I’m not a criminal,” said Chavez, 41, who crossed the Mexican border and settled in this country 14 years ago. “They should put them on the people who commit big crimes.”

Whether his offenses are considered big or small, Chavez broke the law when he paid a coyote $600 to guide him into the United States through the mountains east of San Diego and got job after job in Northern California without the required work permits.

The anklet is to keep the government from losing track of him.

The problem of illegal immigration may begin at the border, but it doesn’t end there. Millions of undocumented immigrants are living and working in U.S. communities, with little risk of being found out. Among those discovered and ordered to appear at deportation hearings, 30% don’t show up. And among those ordered deported, 85% disappear if they are not detained.

“The nation’s immigration system is largely based on personal integrity,” said Manny Van Pelt, spokesman for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. “We have seen that the honor system does not work.”

The electronic anklet is one possible solution, albeit an experimental -- and controversial -- one.

Chavez and about 1,400 immigrants, most of whom normally would have been released on bond or on their own recognizance, are donning electronic anklets traditionally reserved for accused or convicted felons, not suspected border violators.

They are part of a pilot project started last summer in eight U.S. cities after Congress set aside funds to create alternatives to detention. The devices do not constantly track immigrants’ movements but are programmed to notify authorities if they stray from assigned curfews.

Some immigrant rights groups bristle at the approach.

“It’s treating them the way we in society treat criminals,” said Anamaria Loya, executive director of La Raza Centro Legal in San Francisco. “It’s punitive to limit someone’s freedom that way.”

Immigration officials say they had to do something to reduce the number of fugitives.

“It is a violation of the law to enter the United States illegally,” Van Pelt said. “It is a violation of the law to ignore the judge’s order. It is a crime.”

But locking every illegal immigrant up would be expensive, unpopular, and, at this point, impossible. Though more than 1 million immigrants are going through deportation proceedings nationwide, there is room to detain only about 20,000 -- and the beds are usually reserved for convicted felons and others considered a national security or public safety risk.

The anklets save bed space and money. Nationwide, detention costs about $75 per person a day, compared with $25 per person a day for the pilot program.

In fact, the anklets are just one of several technological options the government has tried. Others include a computerized voice-recognition system that requires immigrants to call in regularly from specific phone numbers, and Global Positioning System satellite tracking of immigrants involved in deportation proceedings.

The debate does not always follow the predictable lines of immigration politics.

Some immigration defense attorneys praise the use of electronic monitors, saying they are better than high bail amounts or lengthy detention.

“It’s better to be outside with a bracelet around your ankle than behind bars,” said San Francisco attorney Donald Ungar.

Some opponents of illegal immigration are skeptical of the program, saying the anklets cannot and should not replace detention. The government should be very careful, they say, about whom it releases.

“How effective are these monitors?” said Ron Prince, co-author of Proposition 187, the California initiative that sought to deny public benefits to illegal immigrants. “Lots of people are wearing ankle bracelets who are disappearing. That’s no guarantee.”

While most of those given anklets are not felons, some have been convicted of crimes.

Nigerian immigrant Iyabo Williams served 14 years in federal prison for conspiring to deal drugs. When she finished her sentence in November, immigration agents took her into custody under a law that requires the deportation of immigrants convicted of certain offenses.

Williams, 45, decided to fight deportation, saying there was nothing left for her in Nigeria. Her husband and three children live in Oakland. Immigration agents gave her a choice pending the outcome of her case: stay locked up or go home with an electronic anklet.

She chose the anklet.

“That was my ticket out,” she said. “That ankle bracelet brought me home to my family.”

The immigrants must wear the anklets for at least 30 days. During that time, they also must adhere to curfews and attend court hearings and frequent appointments, sometimes considerable distances from their homes. Authorities also might show up at their homes or jobs.

After the anklets are removed, the immigrants have to appear in person, but less frequently. If they violate the rules, they risk being taken into custody.

The federal government contracted with a Colorado company to keep track of the immigrants for the pilot program, which is being tested in San Francisco; Baltimore; Philadelphia; Miami; St. Paul, Minn.; Denver; Kansas City, Mo.; and Portland, Ore. The small caseload -- about 40 immigrants per staff member -- helps.

In comparison, immigration agents in the San Francisco district, which stretches from Bakersfield to the Oregon border, are responsible for monitoring about 3,500 immigrants. There simply aren’t enough resources to chase every person who flees, said Nancy Alcantar, field office director for the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement office.

“You go after the ‘worst of the worst,’ ” she said, mostly convicted criminals.

Alcantar said agents tend to select immigrants who may not have steady work or family in the country and thus are at a higher risk of fleeing.

Van Pelt said it’s too early to gauge whether the anklets and the close supervision reduce the number of people who flee. But he said only 82 people -- about 6% -- have been taken off the entire pilot program, because they tampered with the monitor, went into hiding or repeatedly did not show up for appointments. The vast majority, officials said, are attending their court hearings and appointments.

The $11-million program is funded through September, when immigration officials plan to decide whether to continue, end or expand it.

UC Davis law school professor Kevin Johnson said using electronic anklets is a reasonable way for the government to get immigrants to court. But he raised questions about restricting immigrants’ whereabouts during their free time. “That, to me, is more problematic,” he said.

Others insist that the program should not apply to asylum seekers.

Paula Ibarra, for instance, came to the United States on a tourist visa when she was a teenager. She overstayed the visa -- by 16 years. Now, Ibarra, who is openly gay, is raising two young children with her partner in Hayward, Calif. She works as a clerk at a Safeway supermarket, where she earns $19 an hour.

Five years ago, Ibarra, 32, decided she wanted to become a legal resident, so she is applying for asylum, arguing that she would be persecuted in Mexico as a lesbian. A judge denied her petition, but she is appealing.

Agents arrested her in December as she tried to renew her work permit, then released her with an electronic anklet.

Ibarra said she still doesn’t understand why she had to wear the anklet. She said she came forward on her own; she has a family, a home, a regular job and no plans to flee.

“I don’t wish to nobody what I’ve been going through,” she said. “The way they treat you, the way they put the [anklet] on you. They control your life.”

Chavez, the San Jose man arrested last fall, was soured by his experience as well. Looking back, Chavez said he wished he’d gone home to Durango, Mexico, rather than staying to fight his deportation.

After the arrest, he lost his job at the restaurant where he had worked for 13 years. He hasn’t been able to find a regular job since, despite filling out nearly a dozen applications.

While he wore the anklet, Chavez had to travel by train, three times a week, from San Jose to San Francisco for face-to-face meetings with immigration officials. The days he didn’t have appointments, he waited on a street corner, seeking construction work.

Every evening, Chavez stayed in his room or paced in the driveway. The curfew kept him from going out to eat or dance. Without a regular job, Chavez said, he spent much of his savings on rent and train tickets.

He has been ordered to leave the United States by the end of August. In the meantime, he no longer has to wear the anklet and has more freedom.

“But now,” he said, adjusting his straw hat, “I don’t have any money.”