Posted on 10/18/2007 8:25:53 PM PDT by khnyny
The newish police chief Ronald Ricucci has been concerned about the city’s 1985 “sanctuary law.” That ordinance, enacted to aid refugees of civil wars in El Salvador and Guatemala, forbids the city police to bust or assist in busting people for being “illegal”. The police are to ignore immigration status of arrestees and citizens, and they are not to cooperate with the federal Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS).
The INS agency, since renamed Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is now part of the Department of Homeland Security. It now maintains a data base of wanted persons that includes “deported felons.” According to the city’s background paper “deported felons” includes “persons who have been convicted of felony drug trafficking, felony firearms trafficking, or a serious violent crime” who have been deported but have re-ported themselves.
Chief Ricucci requested the council review sanctuary law and create a loophole that would allow city police to arrest these deported felons. This small change would keep the law, and the spirit of the law intact, he said.
The huge crowd that turned out to speak against any changes to the law disagreed with that, however. There were a few exceptions, notably a foreign-born woman who said that her family had played by the rules and waited their turn in line to become legal immigrants, so she urged the council to make the changes requested by Chief Ricucci in order to keep the city safer.
That was not to be however. The Mayor and council, following a long, impassioned citizen comment period and a presentation from the police chief, turned him down unanimously.
(Excerpt) Read more at freestatepolitics.us ...
Basically, Police Chief Ricucci asked the Tacoma Park City Council (Maryland) to ammend their "immigrant sanctuary laws" to allow Chief Ricucci and his men arrest illegal aliens who have previously been convicted of a felony and deported, but have come back into the community. The City Council said no. We're talking felonies folks, including serious violent crimes. IMHO, these people are lunacy personified.
They are unanimously in favor of keeping violent felons in their city. No loophole to allow the police to deport, just at least, the violent felons!
If you are not in the country legally you can, "get away with murder." Really. It only costs you a bus ticket back from where they deport you.
I do hope someone sues. It seems like lawsuits are the only thing anyone fears anymore. It will be someone they don’t know getting killed. It will get lost in the statistics. And they can posture as a noble defender of the underclass.
This is the same City Council that voted to impeach Bush recently too, but at least they support his immigration policy./s
Actually, I think there was some debate within the council as to whether they should impeach Cheney first, lol.
It seems that the sanctuary laws are in violation of state and Federal law. Perhaps concerned Marylanders should consider calling the Governor’s office re these asshats.
These people are putting the whole area at risk with their “policies”, not just Tacoma Park.
The Takoma Park City Council members have obviously eaten poison tofu from Red China, and they are suffering major brain damage as a result. Damn hippies!
Maryland “Freak State” PING!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.