Way to go, Orange County Sheriff Mike Carona.
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."
Alternate title..
Local police agencies moving to enforce federal immigration laws
Mike Caron will have a field day in Santa Ana. He's got the whole damn town to report and deport.
"It will have a chilling effect on our community". No problem, it is much warmer in Mexico head right on home amigo!!!
Which they have had the ability to do since 1996, but some on FR are more interested in knee jerk slogans and calling people who grow food, build things, and create wealth, scumbags.
Go for it Sheriff Mike. If anyone can make it work, he can.
My only question is what took so long for everyone to figure this out? Santa Ana is a cesspool among other places that have been infested in California. Unfortunately the rest of the country now knows what Californian's have known for years about the trashing of our country by illegals.
Sheriff Carona was the one who got that POS Alejandro Avila for kidnapping, rape and murder of 5 year old Samantha Runnion.
"state and county police agencies nationwide are moving to join a federal program that enlists local officers to enforce immigration laws."
What other Fed laws will they be empowered to enforce?
Dane if you think it is bad now just wait about a year. The tide has turned. The issue is moved up front and former advocates of open borders are turning tail and running. Mr Teddy (the Hutt) Kennedy has no sway over congress on this issue. Even the Dems are catching on. Feel free to look back on this statement and weep later.
Did you hear that there was another freeway shooting late last night? Yes. Santa Ana. 17th St. & the 55. Go feeger.
How bout they grow food, build things and create wealth in Old Mexico. They would surely be a greater asset there than here. But of course the perks would not be there would they. The US taxpayer can no longer afford those perks Dane.
LOL! I wonder why, whenever someone wants to do something right, the special interest groups always claim it have "chilling effects"? I find it amazing that breaking the law and the decline of morality in society are "positive signs of tolerance and diversity" while acting legally and morally are so freaking dangerous to the public-at large.
I call the Hispanics who shot at someone on the freeway last night scumbags.
You betcha.
Yes it has, there will be a guest worker program, now you can either support the mccain/kennedy plan or the Kyl/Cornyn plan.
IMO, the people who will be weeping are those panting for mass deportations soley based on ethnicty(which 80% of those polled by Ed Goeas called unrealistic).
Way to go, Orange County Sheriff Mike Carona.
Amen. In fact, I would add:
"The federal government has,on purpose and fully aware of it, 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."
Don't forget those tattooed freaks with a penchant for machete killing. They are scum-bags deluxe and just come in with the rest of the flotsam from the South. Mara ----? Should have a target in the middle of thier foreheads.
You read my mind... If the illegals leave Santa Ana, the few American citizens that are left there might have some room to breathe.
In your wierd, alternate universe. The adverse effect on the infrastructure,schools, hospitals, roads far outwrights the "wealth" they create. For example, IIRC one study (they quoted it on John & Ken) showed labor was 5 cents on an average head of lettuce.
By driving down wages or forcing those that follow hiring laws out of business they create a perpetual underclass that takes much, much more than it gives.
Immigration enforcement is 1/2 of the solution. We need to see employers do hard prison time. Then watch the immigration slow down to a crawl.
The MMP was a great idea also -- we need it across the entire southern border.
I'd buy up a wholelotta property ASAP. There WERE some neat areas in that city.
You go Carona!!!!
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