Posted on 03/23/2008 6:44:49 AM PDT by Sub-Driver
Immigration Referrals by Police Draw Scrutiny By KAREEM FAHIM
WOODBURY, N.J. — A green-card holder from Guatemala said he was asked about his immigration status last month when he went to pick up his nephew from the West Deptford, N.J., police station.
An illegal immigrant from Mexico was arrested March 5 when the car in which he was a passenger was pulled over for rolling through a stop sign in South Harrison Township, N.J.
Seven months after the state attorney general, Anne Milgram, ordered local police departments in New Jersey to question people they arrest for certain crimes about their immigration status and to report illegal immigrants to federal authorities, the rate of such referrals has nearly doubled.
But immigrants and their advocates say that some people have been unfairly swept up in the dragnet because of overzealous enforcement or confusion over how Ms. Milgram’s directive was supposed to be implemented, creating a chilling effect on some immigrants’ relationships with the police.
“This is imposing an incredible human cost on these immigrants,” said Maria Juega of the Latin American Legal Defense and Education Fund. “They fear contact with authority. Any remote or direct link with the government is now a risk for an immigrant.”
The directive was announced last August amid outrage after a triple murder in which one of the suspects was an illegal immigrant who had been released on bail after previous arrests. It urged officers to inquire about citizenship and nationality when booking people for felonies or drunken driving.
From September through February, New Jersey law enforcement agencies referred 8,874 cases to a United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement center in Vermont,
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
WHERE IS THE BARF ALERT?
I sometimes feel like the police just care about crime and not me the person.
/sarc
I can guarantee it will work.
LEAVE!
So if you are a lawbreaker you should have no fear of being caught?
I noticed that the word “illegal” was dropped at the beginning of the fourth sentence. That’s where I stopped reading.
These people took a calculated risk in not entering the country legally.
Call the WAAAMBULANCE!
bump
“....illegal immigrant....”
No such thing.
If you are truly an immigrant, as defined by following established legal procedures, you are not an “illegal”.
These people are criminals, but you’d never know it from the LeftMedia incompetents at the NYT, the leading light in that most inexact and undemanding of professions - journalism.
Police chasing criminals - what is this world coming to?
It worse than that, they're being 'unfair' to them. Which, according to the Times, apparently consists of not only chasing them but catching them.
What is the big deal about being asked your citizenship or residnecy status? When ever I enter the country from abroad the first thing I’m asked is where I was born, and what is my residency. I’m proud to answer the question with “I am an American, born and bred.”
Who do you call if you suspect an employer is using illegal workers or that there are illegals residing in your area?
As the first line of the article points out, it is not just about illegals. The legals and the native born say that they are singled out because they are brown.
Then they should start cooperating with the police, get out the illegals and they'll have much less to worry about.
From the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996: Under section 642(a) of IIRIRA, a “Federal, State, or local government entity or official may not prohibit, or in any way restrict, any government entity or official from sending to, or receiving from, the Immigration and Naturalization Service information regarding the citizenship or immigration status, lawful or unlawful, of any individual.”
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