36 AMERICAN POLICE BEAT: AUGUST 2017 Which part of “illegal” don’t you understand? Might it be the part about breaking the law to do the feds’ job for free? H ere’s how i t r e a l l y works. In Florida recently, a Largo Police officer arrest- ed Malkhaz Ambroladze on a charge of allowing an unlicensed driver to oper- ate a vehicle. The following day ICE sent Pinellas County jail of- ficials an arrest warrant for Ambroladze, who is 39 and a Guatemalan national. ICE also sent the form asking that the jail hold Ambroladze for up to 48 hours if he posted bail so agents could pick him up. As is frequently the case, the feds never showed up. And that leaves the local officials in a kind of legal limbo. The Pinellas County Sheriff’s Office wound up holding Ambroladze for five days after he posted bail. And there’s the rub. The question for local law enforcement is a simple one – when do they have legal authority to hold pris- oners for ICE after they’re supposed to be released on local charges? So what we have here apparently is a conundrum. Immigration hard liners are very fond of slogans like “What part of illegal do you not understand?” and “Enforce the law!” Pinellas Sheriff Bob Gualtieri is trying to bridge the gap between that emo- tional enthusiasm for the round ups and the rule of law. “The vast majority of sheriffs want to cooperate with ICE,” Gualtieri told reporters with Tampa Bay. com. “We just need a legal way to do it.” Gualtieri recently trav- eled to D.C. to meet high- ranking ICE officials to see if they couldn’t clear things up. But critics of the im- migration crackdown say that federal officials are not concerned with the legal issues their priorities create for local law enforcement professionals. “I don’t think ICE thinks it needs a solution,” said Domenic Powell, an advo- cacy and policy strategist for the American Civil Lib- erties Union. “Its solution is to systematically violate the Fourth Amendment and shame sheriffs.” Gualtieri, who in addi- tion to being a sheriff is also an attorney, says unlike the federal government, local law enforcement has to adhere to certain rules, standards and laws. “Like it or not, and there are some people who don’t like it, people who are in this country illegally have constitutional rights,” Gual- tieri said. César Cuauhtémoc Gar- cía Hernández, a professor at the University of Denver Sturm College of Law and an expert on immigration law, says trying to work outside of the judicial sys- tem is likely going to be problematic – especially in terms of lawsuits. “It should be up to a judge to decide when the state deprives someone of their liberty,” Hernández said. “If the government wants to take that from somebody, they have to show that evidence to a third party.” That’s why sheriffs in BrowardandAlachuacoun- ties, for example, don’t ac- cept ICE civil warrants as a legal basis to hold someone on a 48-hour detainer. Here’s the big giveaway, at least according to some observers: A bill filed recently that would protect state and lo- cal law enforcement agen- cies that comply with ICE detainers from legal li- ability looks like its going nowhere. Right now local law en- forcement’s on the hook for damages when things go bad and it’s extremely hard to see why the feds would want to change that. “We need a resolution immediately, not months from now and certainly not years from now,” Sheriff Gualtieri said. In the meantime there are ways for local law en- forcement agencies to pro- tect themselves. In Gualtieri’s shop, ICE sends the jail a detainer re- quest, warrant and a book- ing form so the documents are on file by the time the inmate is released on local charges. Then, if ICE don’t show up the detainees are “re- booked” into the jail on immigration charges until agents can arrive. “We’re not making a decision on their custody status or making an arrest we can’t make,” Gualtieri said. “That eliminates the legal exposure for us and puts the onus on ICE.” But needless to say, the folks actually doing the heavy lifting on this stuff in terms of staying within the law might be getting a little tired of “what part of illegal don’t you understand?” Not everything’s simple enough to reduce to a slo- gan that fits on a bumper sticker. Well it looks like the end of “deskgate.” According to KBAX News, the chief of police in California City will not be facing criminal charges for moving desks out of the police building and into a private security business. Chief Eric Hurtado and his brother, Rick Hurtado, were spotted late last year as they removed the desks at the station from police headquarters. The desks were discov- ered later at the office of a private security company where Rick Hurtado either works or worked in the past. The prosecutor said the problem with bringing a case against the chief was the apparent lack of crimi- nal intent or any proof that the chief actually stole or misappropriated city prop- erty. Chief Hurtado told in- vestigators that he wanted to use the desks for city- hired investigators from the private eye firm and that he moved the desks in antici- pation of the investigators working out of the security company’s office space. He also said he moved the desks before getting approval to hire the inves- tigators. The chief’s brother Rick says the desks were “given temporary storage” at the private security company. The desks are now back at the station. DeskGate winding down now as furniture is returned to owners