PORTLAND, Ore. - The recent arrest of two men in Milwaukie on murder charges, and the subsequent admission the two made that they were in the country illegally, brought an onslaught of phone calls and e-mails from KATU viewers over issues surrounding their status in the U.S.

In digging deeper, KATU News has learned that local police officers are not allowed to ask whether a person is in the country illegally, something that may come as a surprise.

You see, there is a state law that specifically states that no law enforcement agency in the state of Oregon can use money, equipment or personnel to identify or arrest someone solely because they are in the U.S. illegally.

Many police agencies interpret that to mean their officers cannot legally ask someone if they are a citizen.

Brian McClatchie is a retired immigration officer.  For 26 years, he worked to detain and deport people who had come to the U.S. illegally, and until three years ago, he operated out of the Portland office.  Before that, he was in San Diego.

"I can remember times when I arrested the same person five and six times during an eight-hour shift," he said.

McClatchie points to the recent murder case in Milwaukie as an example of the broken immigration system.  Both suspects admit entering the country illegally from Mexico six months ago.  One of them had previously been arrested for drunk driving and was released, but not deported.

"If they were not here illegally, they'd be in Mexico and whatever murder they may have contemplated or committed would have been somewhere else," he said.

McClatchie said in his experience, some local police agencies go a step further than telling their officers not to ask whether a suspect is in the U.S. illegally.

"If they do run across somebody they reasonably expect to be an illegal alien, even though they can't determine that, they've been ordered not to contact I.C.E.," he said.

When we asked why, McClatchie said "because the police command staff and the politicians think that local law enforcement should not be involved in that."

"The immigration law is extremely complex," said immigration attorney Brent Renison.  "Mistakes can be made and I would say mistakes would be made even more frequently if police officers who didn't do this on a daily basis were involved."

Renison said giving local officers that authority would create a whole new class of victims, with illegal arrests, racial profiling and restriction on liberties for people who are citizens.

"If you have these mistakes made on a state or local basis, the state gets sued, the local government gets sued.

I.C.E., which stands for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, does have something called the Criminal Alien Program where federal investigators go to local jails and interview people to see if they are in the U.S. legally.  Officials at I.C.E. told KATU News they have been putting immigration holds on 150 people a week at one jail in Seattle alone.