In a followup to this piece: Dallas jail guard arrested for being in country illegally, the Dallas Morning News has this up.

Arrest of Dallas County jail guard suspected of being in country illegally spurs new rules

Dallas County and Sheriff’s Department officials said Monday they plan to enact new policies requiring annual or periodic checks of the legal status of non-U.S. citizens working as jail guards or deputies.

The policy change is in response to the arrest Friday of a sheriff’s jail guard on charges of being in the country illegally. Employers are responsible for making sure employees are legally eligible to work in the United States.

Officer Maria Elvia Ross, 34, of Irving was arrested at work by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers and faces deportation because of civil immigration violations.

Ross was deported from the United States in 1998, ICE spokesman Carl Rusnok confirmed Monday. He said he could not provide the circumstances of the deportation or of Ross’ re-entry into the country.

Ross was married in Dallas County – the first of two marriages here – in August 2000, court records show. The couple divorced less than two years later.

ICE has not released details about the allegations against Ross or the nature of her immigration status. A court hearing has not been scheduled.

Full Story Here:
Arrest of Dallas County jail guard suspected of being in country illegally spurs new rules

There appears to be a lot more to this incident than meets the eye.

Dr. Mattye Mauldin-Taylor, the county’s human resources director, said Ross had a temporary work permit when she was hired by the Sheriff’s Department in 2001 – two years before a rule took effect requiring deputies and jail guards to be U.S. citizens.

Mauldin-Taylor said Ross provided the Sheriff’s Department with documentation of her ability to work in the United States every year until 2005. She said the Sheriff’s Department should have followed up every year to make sure Ross was legally eligible to work in the United States.

“Both of us would bear some responsibility for that,” she said.

Dr. Mauldin-Taylor might need to take on the title of ‘Captain Obvious’. Of course the County bears responsibility. Maria Elvia Ross should have taken responsibility as well, but once an ILLEGAL feels safe and secure, they aren’t so prompt about taking care of little details like the renewal of work permits, visas and the like.

Rusnok, the ICE spokesman, said employers are responsible for “tracking expiration dates and reverifying employees’ eligibility to work in the United States.”

Mauldin-Taylor said her department is reviewing its procedures and will create a rule under which the work eligibility of non-citizens will be checked every year.

“There’s not really any follow-up once they produce the documentation” when applying for a job, she said.

Apparently, Maria Elvia Ross slipped through the cracks for the last 5 years or so. That poses a couple of other questions that need to be asked, and answered.

Why was Dallas County hiring non-citizens to work in a Law Enforcement position to begin with, and how many more non-citizens are already in position, working for the County in who knows what type of position? Ducking and covering, slipping through the cracks just like Maria Elvia Ross has done?

If Ross is any example, she was assigned in 2006 to Sheriff Lupe Valdez’s prestigious quality assurance team, which oversees improvements to sanitation and maintenance in the jails. It is considered an elite unit in the jails. How many more ILLEGALS are in an *elite unit*?

Sheriff’s spokeswoman Kim Leach said that the matter is under investigation but that frequent work-eligibility checks now will be required.

“That policy is being written as we speak,” she said.

This kind of reminds me of that old ‘closing the barn door after the horse gets out’ thing.

I have a feeling that the Dallas County Sheriffs Office will be running a HELP WANTED ad in the near future. I am inclined to believe that Maria Elvia Ross may only be the tip of the iceberg here in Dallas County. There are bound to be many more ILLEGALS working for the County, maybe not in a position as high as the one attained by Ross, but an ILLEGAL, in ANY position, is still an ILLEGAL.

As one of the comment makers on the Dallas Morning News said, “These are the people that are suppose to enforce the law?”

Yeah, they are…