Local Police Stepping Up Involvement in Immigration Mattters
The AP reports that local police in many states increasingly are becoming involved in enforcement of immigration laws, an area traditionally left to the feds.
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.
This is bad policy.
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."
There's a lot more reasons this is a lousy idea, as I set out here back in 2003 when some Republican congresspersons introduced the CLEAR Act (H.R. 2671.)
< Mob Cop's Son Talks About His Dad | Afghan Woman Stoned to Death > |