More illegal immigrants' arrests are local

WASHINGTON, June 9 (UPI) -- Local law enforcement agencies across the United States are arresting illegal immigrants, saying they're working around federal enforcement rules.

Some local police departments have gotten creative in arresting hundreds of immigrants for nonviolent, usually minor, offenses such as fishing without a license, resulting in deportation, The New York Times reported Monday. Last month, 260 illegal immigrants in Iowa were sentenced to five months in prison violating federal identity theft laws.

Sometimes local officials receive training and a measure of jurisdictional control from U.S. Immigration and Enforcement under program that permits officers to investigate and detain people suspected of being illegal immigrants. Forty-seven departments have such authority and 95 are waiting to be included, the Times said.

Responding to the lack of congressional work on immigration, legislatures in 46 states enacted 240 immigration-related in 2007, National Conference of State Legislatures statistics indicate. In Mississippi, for example, it is a felony for an illegal immigrant to have a job.

"It is a way to address illegal immigration without calling it that," Jessica Vaughan, a senior policy analyst at the Center for Immigration Studies, which supports greater local enforcement, told the Times. "They don't just have to sit and wait for Washington."