Local talk radio was abuzz yesterday over an Associated Press report that 15 illegal aliens stopped by the state police on the Pennsylvania Turnpike in Somerset County were later released after immigration officials wouldn't come to pick them up because it was snowing so badly.

Manny Van Pelt, spokesman for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Washington, D.C., confirmed that's what occurred, but added it was his understanding it would have taken immigration agents three hours of driving in dangerous conditions to get to where they were being held.

Moreover, he said, before that decision was made, background checks of the 13 Mexicans and two Guatemalans who were pulled over in a routine traffic stop at 1:45 p.m. Tuesday showed they had no criminal records and didn't pose any threat to homeland security.

"In this particular instance, we would have been risking people's lives to enforce an administrative law for people who were not an immediate threat to the community," Van Pelt said.

"The system involving state police identifying illegal aliens is very effective throughout Pennsylvania and we respond all the time, but this is one particular instance where the forces of nature overcame the will of men."

Under normal circumstances, the background checks -- as were done in this case -- would be undertaken first.

"Any person who is a criminal threat to the community is immediately taken into custody," Van Pelt said.

If illegal aliens are shown not to have committed any crimes and aren't suspected to be security risks they are given notices to appear in court before an immigration judge, meaning they would have been released anyway on Tuesday. The only difference is they didn't receive notices to appear before a judge.

Victor Romero, a professor of immigration law at Penn State University's Dickinson School of Law, who doesn't believe state police should be enforcing immigration rules in the first place, said what occurred Tuesday fell under the heading of common sense.

"The immigration service has priorities and the priority right now are people with criminal records or terrorism records," Romero said.