New edict on immigration enforcement (DHS & 287(g): police to focus on serious, not minor crimes)

Local police agencies empowered by the federal government to enforce immigration law must focus their efforts on criminals who pose a threat to public safety, with less emphasis on those who commit minor crimes, Department of Homeland Security officials announced Friday.

The announcement aims to clarify a controversial program that deputizes police to turn over suspects or criminals to immigration authorities for possible deportation. Normally police do not enforce federal law.

Most of the participating police agencies signed up under President George W. Bush, whose administration promoted it as a tool against dangerous criminal immigrants.

Immigrant rights groups said it led to civil rights violations and racial profiling.

Some police departments check immigration status in a wide variety of crimes. Friday's directive lays out federal priorities: violent crimes such as rape or robbery, as well as major drug offenses; followed by property crimes, such as burglary and fraud.

All 66 police departments that already participate in the program must sign a new, uniform memorandum within 90 days.

They also must agree to pursue the criminal charges that prompted an illegal immigrant's detention. In other words, police can't make an arrest just to find out if someone is in the country illegally.

"This new agreement promotes consistency across the board to make sure that all of our partner agencies are abiding by the same standards," said Homeland Security spokesman Matt Chandler.

The memorandum says that police agencies will be bound by civil rights laws and subject to oversight by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement as they arrest and detain illegal immigrants for possible deportation. Any agency that cannot prove that it is following those standards could lose its federal authority.

The report also cited inconsistency among the agencies, with some focusing on serious crimes and others on minor crimes.

So?

Why is consistency of value here. I would think that varied approaches might illuminate the one that works best.

"I think Homeland Security is going in the right direction," Williams said. "We feel that the 287(g), if properly directed, could be a useful tool. What we did not want was police officers going around and checking green cards."

Why on earth not? What could possibly be wrong with police checking for green cards? Do we have enough federal agents to do the checking? Obviously not or we would not be overwhelmed with illegal immigrants.

A Police Foundation report this year said that the costs of 287(g) outweighed the benefits and that police should be prohibited from arresting and detaining people solely to investigate their immigration status. The report said the program hurt public safety because illegal immigrants were afraid to report crimes for fear of being deported.

Seems to me the critics are mixing apples and oranges here. Is the problem that overzealous police officers are rousting innocent Hispanic looking citizens on our public thoroughfares? Or is the problem that illegal aliens, criminals by definition, are afraid to report crimes committed against them for fear of being sent out of the country. What does one have to do with the other? Why is the fear of being set out of the country if one reports a crime the same as being arbitrarily stopped on the street?

They also must agree to pursue the criminal charges that prompted an illegal immigrant's detention. In other words, police can't make an arrest just to find out if someone is in the country illegally.

I cannot believe that this has been going on. Even the most rabidly anti-immigrant policeman must conjure up some excuse to arrest. In other words even without this pro-anti-immigration restrictions on reasonable police enforcement, the police were not arresting people to check out their citizenship without some other crime to justify the arrest.

The Obama administration will do nothing effective to limit the flow of illegal immigrants but, to the contrary, it will move to make voters of everyone it can find. I don't see how anyone can come to any other conclusion because the justifications for these new regulations are absurd on their face.

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