Making Illegality Legal
A new proposal in Richfield (a first-ring 'burb of Minneapolis) would "It would "codify" an already unwritten policy where the police do not ask the immigration status of people reporting crimes," says Jerome, author of SD63 (Senate District 63, deep in the heart of the blue first-ring suburbs), a story he's been covering.
The debate has taken a number of the usual turns, as activists have brought apparently anecdotal evidence to bear to try to not only forbid Richfield police from asking for immigration documents, but in fact to impose a $1,000 fine and tack a misdemeanor charge onto asking (which is, by the way, already against Richfield Police policy).
As to justifications? Jerome responds to one supporter's claim:
Richfield residents might be more inclined to contact police, too, with such an ordinance, [Mexican consulate representative Joyce Graciela] Stellick said.
“When an Hispanic knows who is committing a crime, who is selling drugs on a corner, and they won’t be asked about immigration status, they will be glad to share it with the police, just as you would if you had information,” she said. “As a Richfield resident, you will feel safer knowing that if you have an immigrant neighbor, he’ll look after you and call the police.”
This statement is utter nonsense. If this ordinance were to pass, do you think a person who is in this country illegally would actually be more inclined to call the police to report a crime? That is just plain silly. People who report crimes are people who have an investment in their neighborhood or community. By nature, an illegal immigrant is somewhat transient because they need to be able to move to aviod being caught (remember, they are criminals because they are breaking the law) therefore they will not be invested in the community and not as likely to report a crime.
Read the whole thing, including the linked article.
Posted by Mitch at
June 1, 2005 05:40 AM
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What's next? Election workers facing a $1000 fine if they ask too many questions about citizenship?
Why not just increase the number of multi-language anonymous crime-tip phone lines and advertise them more?
Posted by: RBMN at June 1, 2005 06:50 AMWell, Richfield would be in lock step with liberal advocates such as Rudolph Guliani (spelling?) and the city of San Diego (where the Repub convention was last held). Sanctary policies are in force in 48 large metropolitan areas; the chief advocates for them tend to be police, immigrant rights groups, and local businesses. There are a number of documented cases where an immigrant failed to report domestic abuse out of fear of deportation, and I think we are all aware of instances where Chinese illegals are held in sweat-shop slavery who are afraid to go to the police. There is also documentation where an illegal immigrant did report a crime, let slip he was in the country illegally and was deported.
It had been Justice administration policy up until 2002 that such matters were limited to the INS and not local law enforcement, and recent attempts to mandate local law enforcement of immigration policy have been rightly viewed as yet another unfunded federal mandate. A program set up to cover some of the costs to local governments has been cut by congress - remember, this used to be solely a federal responsibility via the INS. Another problem that has made it difficult even when police want to check a person's status is the difficulty in accessing INS data; this difficulty is driven in large part to insufficient manpower within that agency.
Where the sanctuary policies have fallen down is in their failure to check the immigration status for criminal suspects, and the blame for this seems to become a finger pointing exercise between the sanctuary policies and the INS.
I would also contest Mitch's contention that transient populations have no interest in reporting crime; it may be underreported but to tie this so closely to self-interest frankly in my opinion dehumanizes non-property owners.
Sources:
http://citypaper.net/articles/052401/news.hallmon1.shtml
http://www.govexec.com/story_page.cfm?articleid=27985&printerfriendlyVers=1&
(other pages contributed but I don't have their URLs)
Posted by: Bill Haverberg at June 1, 2005 07:19 AM"recent attempts to mandate local law enforcement of immigration policy have been rightly viewed as yet another unfunded federal mandate. "
What? So is reporting on terrorists and serial-killers, yet there appears to be no reticence on reporting these to the Feds. Just because the law is federal, doesn't mean the locality ought to ignore the issue. By this argument, if a man is stopped by local police and found to be wanted for a crime in another state, the local police should let the criminal go because catching other states' crooks is "yet another unfunded federal mandate".
Further, picking out different people to blame for the current situation is no reason to absolve the police from enforcing the laws.
These sanctuary laws are stupid further because by allowing criminals to stay, they are endangering the local populace. How is that ever a 'good' thing? If illegals are less comfortable obeying the law by virtue of being in the country illegally, does it really make sense to coddle them?
Posted by: aodhan at June 1, 2005 10:33 AMBill,
Mitch was quoting me about the transient peoples and I do not think I was de-humanizing them, I was merely making the point that "in general" people with a vested interest tend to be more active.
Also, if you read my three posts on the topic, I'm not advocating the police actively ask and pursue illegals, I simply do not want to codify something (with fine included) that is working fine as it is.
Just leave it as a policy, let these groups spend money educating the immigrants instead of getting ordinances passed that paint our police into a corner.
Posted by: Jerry aka SD63 at June 1, 2005 09:56 PMWhy shouldn't police treat everyone (even criminals) as trustworthy, law-abiding citizens?
I propose we also pass a law making it illegal for judges and lawyers to ask about prior convictions in a trial too...
Ridiculous.
Posted by: Lyle at June 2, 2005 05:05 PM