Posted on 01/19/2004 3:46:41 PM PST by Beck_isright
WEST PALM BEACH -- Here in Circuit Judge Roger B. Colton's courtroom come the children: abused, abandoned, neglected.
In most courtrooms, as in public schools, immigration status doesn't matter. In those arenas, all children, foreign-born or All-American, are treated the same.
But to Colton, immigration status does matter.
Increasingly he's talking about it, questioning why illegal immigrants should be given services and denying shelter to children here illegally. Then after they leave the courtroom, he has been reporting some of them and their families to the U.S. Border Patrol.
It's shocking, say the lawyers who represent children in front of him. And it's an abuse of his power, reporting to law enforcement details revealed in other matters before him, they say.
It's his duty, Colton says.
"They're violating the law, and I'm a judge," Colton said. "Don't I have some type of obligation to the system to report it... when it's smack-dab right out in front of me?"
About four times since October, Colton has written down the names, addresses and birth dates of immigrant children and their families and faxed it over, he said.
Barbara White, chief of the Public Defender's Juvenile Division, says it's not appropriate for judges in any courtroom to report people to law enforcement. Most certainly not in a juvenile setting, where the clients are the most vulnerable, she said.
It can be very intimidating to illegal immigrants for a judge to investigate their legal status -- something that's more appropriate for the prosecutor or police to do, White said.
It's not uncommon for judges to learn of illegal acts while presiding over cases. Divorce judges hear people admit to tax evasion; criminal judges hear of drug sales during the commission of another crime; civil judges hear perjury. Rarely, though, do they inject themselves into the situation by reporting the details to a law enforcement agency.
Colton, acting as a reporter of facts rather than a detached observer of cases, is abusing his power, say lawyers who practice before him. Most lawyers interviewed declined to comment on the record for fear of hurting their clients' cases.
A former member of the governing board of the American Immigration Lawyers Association said Colton's practice is "shocking."
"He's taken upon himself a duty he was not sworn to do," said Mazen Sukkar, an immigration lawyer in Hollywood. "He's a state judge enforcing federal law. It's quite disturbing."
It will have a chilling effect, he says. As word spreads in the immigrant community that judges turn in illegals, they will no longer come forward to be witnesses in cases, they'll no longer report the child abuse of a neighbor, knowing they may all end up deported. They'll no longer participate in a system designed to help them, Sukkar said.
Colton said he does not report all people he suspects to be illegal. He's done it selectively.
On a recent Saturday, Colton took his turn as duty judge at the jail courthouse. He issued a spoken order that a Mexican man, arrested for a serious crime, be reported. He did not ask the man his legal status. "I just know he was undocumented," Colton said later.
In another case at the jail, the very mention of the Border Patrol may have influenced the outcome.
Jose Alberto Hernandez stood before Colton, nervously stroking his hair while looking down at his feet. He had been arrested the night before for loitering and giving a false name to police, telling them his name was simply Alberto.
In court, Hernandez gave Colton conflicting information about his name and said he couldn't exactly remember his birthday, but it was a Monday in February 1982. "You're one step away from the Border Patrol being called," Colton said.
Hernandez gave more conflicting answers when Colton asked how he wanted to plead. He seemed confused and perhaps should take his name mix-up case to trial, Colton said. Colton continued to chat about Border Patrol policy with other courtroom officials as Hernandez thought about it. Hernandez then said he wanted to plead guilty.
"Yes, he wants to plead guilty before the Border Patrol gets here," Colton said.
Afterward, when asked about his statements, Colton was surprised: "Is that what the defense attorney said?" he said. "Oh, I did? Oh, yes I did."
Colton a former FBI agent
Colton is a popular judge, in his final term of office. He's consistently rated high in Bar polls for his fairness and good nature.
He reports illegals to the Border Patrol in good conscience, he said, thinking it's better that they be deported to their homeland rather than being treated like slaves here.
His law enforcement background is also a big reason: He spent nine years as a special agent with the FBI.
Colton speaks some Spanish and uses it when he has Spanish speakers before him, asking their names, addresses and dates of birth.
According to a small sampling of judges, Colton is believed to be the only judge among the 51 in Palm Beach County to report people regularly to the Border Patrol. State judges rarely even ask a person's immigration status.
Legally, Colton is on firm ground, said Mike Hethmon, staff attorney for the Federation for American Immigration Reform, the largest and oldest anti-immigration group in the nation.
A recent federal court ruling in eastern Virginia, the court hearing most of the terrorist cases, supports a judge's ability to report immigration information to law enforcement, Hethmon said. Chief Judge Edward Fine said he neither encourages nor discourages his judges to report people. It's not inappropriate to do so, Fine said, but judges must also must weigh whether their actions will inhibit the court system and scare off people.
"Problem is, there's no position that can support both points of view," Fine said.
Circuit Judge Edward Garrison worked at the Palm Beach County Jail in the 1980s. He said he was very active in asking the sheriff's office to report people to the Border Patrol and improving the communication between the federal agents and the jail.
He continued to ask the sheriff to report people when he became a criminal judge and sat for years hearing major felonies, like rape and murder. But now sitting as a family judge hearing mostly divorce cases, the issue rarely comes up and he does not report suspected illegals.
"The people in criminal, they had crossed the line," Garrison said.
All tips investigated
Art Bullock, the U.S. Border Patrol special agent-in-charge locally, is aware of Colton's reporting and said all his tips were checked out. Bullock couldn't say specifically whether anyone had been arrested as a result. The office, made up only of Bullock and a staff of five, supervises eight counties and is swamped with reports. But reports never get ignored, he said.
"If a person is going to take the time to report, we're going to see if it's worth investigating."
Colton said it's been on his mind to report illegals for years, ever since immigration lawyers began coming to his courtroom and point-blank asking him to declare illegal children dependent on the state to improve their immigration cases.
"That's an abuse of my court," he said.
In October, Colton refused to shelter a 16-year-old deaf child because he was here illegally. Colton particularly bristled when he learned that the Department of Children and Families wanted to send the teen to a well-respected school in St. Augustine, the Florida School for the Deaf and the Blind.
"Why should someone here illegally take that spot at that school?" Colton said.
Yet the deaf school is public and, like any other public school, cannot refuse admission because of a child's immigration status. Colton felt badly, however, and reversed his decision a few weeks later, authorizing DCF to shelter the teen and provide him with services.
Colton reported him and his relatives to the Border Patrol anyway. It was his first such call to immigration officials.
He promises more to come.
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