Posted on 04/24/2005 10:42:44 AM PDT by NormsRevenge
SANTA ANA, Calif. - Frustrated by illegal immigrant criminals who slip their grasp, a growing number of state and county police agencies nationwide are moving to join a federal program that enlists local officers to enforce immigration laws.
The federal government has already granted that authority in Florida and Alabama, and the program is under consideration in Connecticut, Oklahoma and Arkansas.
It's also in the works in Southern California - one of the nation's most ethnically diverse regions - where it would reverse a long-standing local police policy of avoiding questions about immigration status during criminal investigations.
Immigrant rights groups insist the move will discourage people from reporting domestic violence or other crimes for fear of deportation, and that it would lead to racial profiling and other abuses.
"We're 100 percent against it," said Amin David, president of Los Amigos of Orange County. "It will have a chilling effect on our community."
Orange County Sheriff Mike Carona is proposing the largest use of the program in the country. He wants to train as many as 500 deputies to catch illegal immigrants who have had criminal convictions.
Under the plan, officers would only check the status of people already in jail or under investigation for serious crimes.
"We're just taking advantage of another law enforcement tool to take bad guys off the street," Carona said.
The proposal drew overwhelming opposition when Carona presented it last week to leaders of community groups.
"If he embarks on this, we fear it will spread to other local agencies and then we'll have chaos," David said.
In neighboring Los Angeles County, the sheriff's department already has approval to train seven civilian employees this summer for a six-month pilot program to identify jail inmates who are eligible for deportation.
About 30 percent of the 18,000 inmates in Los Angeles County custody are foreign-born, but only two federal agents are assigned to determine who should be deported. Meanwhile, overcrowding has forced the county to release 200,000 inmates in the past three years before their sentences were completed.
"Our goal is to get them off the street and out of the country so local resources aren't spent on these individuals," said sheriff's Lt. Margarito Robles.
An estimated 465,000 people in this country have gone into hiding after receiving deportation orders, including as many as 85,000 immigrants who have been convicted of a crime, said Manny Van Pelt, a spokesman for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
The agency, however, has only 4,000 detention and removal officers and 6,000 special agents to find them and handle other crimes.
"Even if we doubled the number of ICE agents, there wouldn't be enough," said Kris Kobach, a law professor at the University of Missouri-Kansas City who helped set up the program in Alabama while serving as counsel to former Attorney General John Ashcroft.
Using local authorities to enforce immigration law has been allowed since 1996, when it was included as part of a broad immigration bill. But no local agencies participated until 2002, when 35 state and local officers in Florida completed the training and were authorized to take action on immigration violations in domestic terrorism investigations.
Alabama trained its first 21 officers in 2003 to deal with what officials called a lack of attention by the federal government to illegal immigration in that state.
State troopers have used the expanded enforcement powers to arrest more than 100 people, including a Mexican man captured during a traffic stop who was wanted for murder in his country and a Nigerian woman using a fraudulent passport to get a driver's license, said Haran Lowe, a lawyer for the state Department of Public Safety.
In Danbury, Conn., Mayor Mark Boughton recently urged his state to join the effort, citing the strain on government services caused by the growing illegal immigrant population in the New York City suburb.
"The federal government has an inability to do its job as it relates to immigration," Boughton said. "The fact of the matter is that this is out of control."
And maybe we can finally call the place St. Ann...
Maybe you should check the crime stats near my house where most of the rapes, stabbings, drug dealings, etc. are being perpetrated by illegal aliens.
If someone truly wants to integrate into US society to "create wealth", then let them apply legally for a work and residency visa.
Exactly! I wish we could do this in NM, but our governor Juan Jose, (aka: Bill) Richardson, thinks it's OK to allow the illegals into NM. He and Vicenti are good buddies. He's giving them driver's licenses without needing a Social Security number.
LOL. Love that tag line!
Excellent thread, everyone...
If two people sneak over our borders, take jobs at minimum wage, pay no net taxes each year, receive free health care, rental assistance, food stamps, etc., drive without insurance, force us to pay to educate their 5 kids at $10,000 to $15,000 each per year, while they're receiving a $5,000 Income Tax Credit Check yearly, they're not "creating wealth".
On the contrary, they're consuming it.
It'll cost the U.S. Taxpayers roughly $1 million dollars to support this illegal alien family for just 10 years.
Under these circumstances, anyone that refers to these illegal aliens as scumbags is being kind.
Criminal, 3rd world, illegal alien, Marxist/Socialist, scumbag, leeches would be more appropriate.
Wouldn't you agree? ;^)
I agree, Sterco.
The argument that if we stop illegal immigration the price of food will skyrocket is pure crap.
A new economic balance will arise - under Nafta that cheap labor will be used to grow vegetables and make things in Mexico, which in the end will be better for everybody. The Mexican economy will improve, thus easing the pressure for illegal migration.
What we should incourage is migration of capital and not the breaking of laws.
Truth BUMP from invaded, bankrupt Mexifornia.
You are dreaming. There is NO provision in the so-called guest worker program that illegals EVER go home. They get 3 year extensions until they apply for citizenship. At best it's a slow-motion amnesty.
But I think this is even a more likely scenario for what we're going to see in a few years at most:
"Instead, with massive support from the ACLU and various Hispanic “immigrants rights” foundations, he had pressed his demand to vote all the way to the Supreme Court…and he won. The Supreme Court, in its famous 5-4 decision, ruled that negligence in securing America’s borders against illegal immigration on the part of the federal government, could not be held against “undocumented workers who played by the rules and paid their taxes,” once they were established in America—legally or not. "No taxation without representation!" was the call heard across the USA. The State of New York had sleep-walked through an aimless and desultory case for denying the vote—and citizenship—to “undocumented workers.”
"Following Ortiz v. New York, a stunned America woke up to discover that there were not only an amazing twenty two million illegal aliens hiding in plain sight across the land, but that eight million of them immediately qualified to vote. In a nation split 50-50 down party and ideological lines, these eight million new voters were recognized to be the certain majority-makers in future elections, and both parties set record lows for cravenness in pandering to their “needs.” Chief among their “needs” were liberal new family reunification laws, and these instant citizens—illegal aliens last year—began bringing the remainders of their families to the USA. Legally
"Overnight, wavering Democrat states became locks, and swing states with large Hispanic populations went solidly “blue.” The result was the recent election which had brought Gobernador Deleon to power in Nuevo Mexico, and had also brought radical Democrats to power in the White House and both houses of congress.
"Thus had come the political tsunami which swept all before it, a tidal wave triggered by an undocumented lawn maintenance worker named Fernando Ortiz."
Remember where you heard this first. The only question is when we'll see this case. The outcome is certain. If the federal government doesn't close the border, doesn't pursue illegal aliens, gives them all the trappings of citizenship (driver's licenses, schooling, medical etc) and collects their taxes....
They are sooner or later going to be given the vote by the courts.
Mark my words. Read it and weep.
It's a start, bump.
Many Americans don't realize yet what is being forced upon us by our own treasonous leaders. They'll only pay attention when it's too late to do anything about it, when their states are as invaded as California, Arizona, Nevada and Texas are, and when they realize the HUGE bills they'll be paying to support "cheap labor", and see their states turn into Mexican colonias.
But it won't matter, it will be a "done deal" made way over the heads of average Americans.
Well...maybe the locals will lead the way since the feds don't have the will yet........
L
Is THAT what they call that crapola that is spray-painted all over southern California?? Does that include the "gang signs" too?
Those useless little gangbangers need to get real jobs, but of course they won't as long as the welfare checks keep coming...
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