HOUSTON -- Leonard Parrish loves spending time in his garden, but spending time at the county jail is something he never bargained for. 

"This must be some kind of game or something that someone's playing on me," Leonard Parrish, Houston resident and American citizen.

What happened last month was not a game.  Parrish discovered he had an outstanding arrest warrant for a bad check and came to the jail to pay the small "no arrest” bond.  But when the 50-year-old father of five from Brooklyn got there, he said he was fingerprinted, strip-searched, and sent to the inmate intake area because a deputy thought he was an illegal immigrant.

"There was something that came up about where was I born, and I told him I was born here.  He said that I had a foreign accent. I told him that I have an East Coast accent," said Parrish.

Parish tried to prove he was American and born in the United States with his state issued ID and his social security number.

"That's when the captain said, ‘You know how many phony numbers and IDs we get through here?’," said Parrish

Parrish claims he spent the next 10 hours in a holding area.

A spokesman at the county jail said that procedurally the Sheriff's office did not do anything wrong.  They said Parrish was flagged because a "U" appeared next to his name on the jail's computer system, signaling his immigration status was unknown.

Officials said the strict policy was adopted several months ago in order to cut down on illegal immigrant crime.  Some activists call it unfair.

"Because if you're white, and your name is George Jones, and it has a “W” next to it, then you're not going to be held," said Rick Dovalina, LULAC.

Parrish was eventually let go, but said he thinks about the experience all the time.