Jail guard's arrest leads to checks on work status
DALLAS, TX
Now Ross faces deportation and Dallas County officials say they
are writing new policies to make sure there are periodic checks of
the legal status of non-U.S. citizens working as jailers and
deputies for the sheriff's department.
The policy change is in response to Ross' arrest Friday. The
34-year-old Irving resident was arrested by U.S. Immigration and
Customs Enforcement officers on civil immigration violations. She
was released the same day. A court hearing has not been scheduled.
No one answered the door at her home Tuesday, and The Associated
Press could not find a current phone number.
Ross was deported from the United States in 1998, ICE spokesman
Carl Rusnok said Tuesday.
But by 2001, Ross had a temporary work permit and was hired by
the county, said Mattye Mauldin-Taylor, Dallas County's human
resources director. That was two years before a rule took effect
requiring deputies and jail guards to be U.S. citizens, according
to a story Tuesday in The Dallas Morning News.
Ross provided the sheriff's department with documents showing
she was eligible to work in the United States each year until 2005.
No one checked for additional documentation in subsequent years,
Mauldin-Taylor said.
"There's not really any follow-up once they produce the
documentation" when applying for a job, Mauldin-Taylor said.
Ross' immigration status was discovered recently when she
underwent a background check after applying to become a deputy
sheriff, County Commissioner John Wiley Price said.
The county's human resources department is creating a rule to
check the work eligibility of non-U.S. citizens every year,
Mauldin-Taylor told the newspaper. Frequent work-eligibility checks
now will be required by the sheriff's department as well,
department spokeswoman Kim Leach said.