Tennessee pact results in jail ordeal for pregnant illegal
By the time Villegas was released from the county jail six days later, she had gone through labor with a sheriff's officer standing guard in her hospital room, where one of her feet was cuffed to the bed most of the time. County officers barred her from seeing or speaking with her husband.
After she was discharged from the hospital, Villegas was separated from her nursing infant for two days and barred from taking a breast pump into the jail, her lawyer and a doctor familiar with the case said. Her breasts became infected, and the newborn boy developed jaundice, they said.
Villegas' arrest has focused new attention on a cooperation agreement signed in April 2007 between federal immigration authorities and Davidson County, which shares a consolidated government with Nashville, that gave immigration enforcement powers to county officers. It is one of 57 agreements, known formally as 287G, that the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency has signed in the last two years with county and local police departments across the country under a rapidly expanding program.
"We are able to identify and report individuals who are here illegally and have been charged with a criminal offense, while at the same time remaining a friendly and open city to our new legal residents," Nashville Mayor Karl Dean said in a statement on Friday.
Lawyers and immigrant advocates say Villegas' case shows how local police can exceed their authority when they seek to act on immigration laws they are not fully trained to enforce.
"Had it not been for the 287G program, she would not have been taken down to jail," said A. Gregory Ramos, a lawyer who is a former president of the Nashville Bar Association. "It was sold as something to make the community safer by taking dangerous criminals off the streets. But it has been operated so broadly that we are getting pregnant women arrested for simple driving offenses, and we're not getting rid of the robbers and gang members."
Villegas, who is 33, has lived in the United States since 1996 and has three other children besides the newborn who are American citizens because they were born here.
She was stopped on July 3 in her husband's pickup truck by a police officer from Berry Hill, a Nashville suburb, initially for "careless driving." After Villegas told the officer she did not have a license, he did not issue a ticket but arrested her instead. Elliott Ozment, Villegas' lawyer, said driving without a license is a misdemeanor in Tennessee that police officers generally handle with a citation, not an arrest.
Recent comments
Am looking for some towels to cry on!
John | July 21, 2008 at 4:20 a.m.
I had three children will in "cuffs" that is how most women...
nfy | July 20, 2008 at 7:18 p.m.
This woman came here illegally--had several children who, by a flawed...
Illegal is illegal | July 20, 2008 at 6:27 p.m.
