By Ted Gest
Two criminologists question blanket bans on hiring ex-offenders
Read full entry »New research from the National Institute of Justice provides guidance for the tough choices law enforcement agencies around the country are having to make as a result of budget cuts and the economic recession.
Read full entry »A bipartisan group of 39 senators are asking appropriators to retain funding for a program that provides anticrime grants to states and localities, reports The Hill. Led by Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-WA), the senators requested "robust" funding for fiscal 2012 for the Edward Byrne Memorial Justice Assistance Grant (Byrne JAG) program. Sixty percent of Byrne JAG funds are allocated to states for local programs while the remaining 40 percent is provided directly to communities via a state-wide competitive grant process.
Earlier this week, Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Patrick Leahy (D-VT) had a field hearing in Delaware to hear about the importance of federal funding for local law enforcement. The Wilmington News-Journal quoted Leahy as saying he wanted to hear what federal programs were working and should be spared from the budget ax. Congress soon will consider levels of federal aid for the budget year starting Oct. 1. Witnesses testified that federal funding and grants have been used to create new positions and purchase new technology that has aided in information sharing among Delaware police agencies.
Read full entry »A new Science Advisory Board has started work at the U.S. Justice Department's Office of Justice Programs, which provides billions of dollars in anticrime aid to states ad localities. The board will provide advice on how to make programs conform to scientific principles. Attorney General Eric Holder addressed its first meeting last Friday. The 15-member panel is chaired by criminologist Alfred Blumstein of Carnegie Mellon University.
In opening remarks to the panel, Assistant Attorney General Laurie Robinson asked members to "look at the broad role of science" within the agency and recommend "how we can better integrate what we learn from science into our programmatic design and spending." The mandate includes not only the agency's grant making but also the research arm, the National Institute of Justice, and the Bureau of Justice Statistics. Robinson also called for suggestions on broad priorities on which research might be focused, and institutional ways to protect the role of science at the agency in the future. She noted that the parent Justice Department "is a lawyer culture and we know from history that it can be hostile to science."
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An immigration program meant to catch the most dangerous criminals has raised questions about the priorities of immigration enforcement.
In mid-November, the New York City Council convened a hearing to discuss immigration policy in its city jails. The meeting ran more than five hours and mixed statistics, testimony and outrage as the audience tried to determine what implementing an immigration program called Secure Communities would mean for the city.
But New York, like many other jurisdictions around the country, found itself with more questions than answers.
Launched in 2008, Secure Communities is a Department of Homeland Security program that identifies deportable immigrants in U.S. jails. Under the program, an arrestee’s fingerprints are checked against federal criminal and immigration databases, giving U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) technological access to local prisons and jails.
ICE and local law enforcement are notified immediately of the arrestee’s immigration status. ICE can then issue a detainer against the arrested individual--meaning the person can be held until ICE decides whether to initiate deportation proceedings against them.
Secure Communities has been activated in 788 jurisdictions in 34 states. The agency plans to implement the program in every state and local jail by 2013.
According to ICE’s Fiscal Year 2010 Fact Sheet, Secure Communities targets and assists “all local communities in the removal of those criminal aliens representing the greatest threat to community safety.” In fiscal year 2010 alone, the Secure Communities program deported more than 1,000 aliens convicted for homicide, nearly 6,000 convicted of sex offenses, more than 45,000 aliens convicted of drug offenses, and nearly 28,000 convicted of driving under the influence of drugs or alcohol.
‘No-cost’ immigration control
For many law enforcement officials and community members, the Secure Communities program is a no-cost, simple way to control immigration and protect residents from potentially violent criminals, without turning local police into immigration officials.
“The program identifies individuals who are here in our country illegally and commit serious crimes, without profiling or enforcement of federal immigration laws by our deputies,” says Fairfax County, Virginia Sheriff Stan Barry in an ICE press release. “There’s no additional workload for our staff and does not cost a dime to Fairfax County or to our residents.”
Much like Arizona’s controversial SB170 law and the 287(g) program, the Secure Communities program is, undoubtedly, changing the face of immigration enforcement in the United States by giving ICE unprecedented access to prisons and jails across the country.
Supporters of the program say that complaints about Secure Communities miss the point: criminal or not, the program targets individuals who broke U.S. law.
"Where it is written that you have to commit a serious felony to have something done to get you out of the country?” says Ira Mehlman, spokesperson for the Federation for American Immigration Reform, an advocacy group that calls for reducing immigration levels. “The penalty is, if you are caught in this country illegally, you are removed."
Police departments already work with federal agencies, notes Mehlman, adding that ICE shouldn’t be exempt.
“Every single day, the New York City police department works with the FBI, the ATF, and the DEA---nobody seems to object to that (and) nobody is asking them to go out and do the job of federal immigration authorities,” he adds. “But if somebody falls into your lap, they ought to have the responsibility to run that person to federal immigration authorities."
But although the Secure Communities program seems an efficient way to catch and deport immigrant law-breakers, some wonder if the costs of the program outweigh the benefits.
Mixed Message
ICE has offered a mixed and perplexing message to the three communities around the country that have tried to opt-out of the Secure Communities program. In September, the County Board of Arlington, Virginia voted unanimously to opt out of the program, because officials feared it would “promote a culture of fear and distrust of law enforcement, ” according to the Board’s published resolution.
By early November, after writing a letter to ICE asking for information about opting out, County Manager Barbara M. Donnellan and Arlington’s police chief and sheriff met with ICE and found that they had two options. They could either not receive the results of federal database searches, meaning local law enforcement would not receive crucial information about the arrestee—such as known aliases or criminal history—or they could decline to share fingerprints with ICE and the FBI. Virginia law, like many states, requires that an arrestee’s fingerprints be checked against both state and federal databases, rendering it impossible for Arlington to opt out.
Like Arlington, San Francisco and Santa Clara, Calif. have each struggled to define their responsibilities and requirements to ICE.
ICE initially told the cities the program was not optional. Then, last September, a memo from Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano implied that communities could in fact chose not to send fingerprints of those they arrest to immigration authorities.
“A local law enforcement agency that does not wish to participate in the Secure Communities deployment plan must formally notify the Assistant Director for the Secure Communities program,” Napolitano wrote. She added that jurisdictions that did not wish to participate would still be responsible for notifying ICE about “suspected criminal aliens” in their custody.
Both Arlington and San Francisco told ICE in writing that they did not want to be “deployed.” But ICE reversed itself again in November, and informed both that opting out was not, in fact, an option.
“Jurisdictions cannot opt out of Secure Communities as it is fundamentally an information sharing program between federal partners,” wrote ICE spokesman Ivan Ortiz Delgado in an email to The Crime Report. According to ICE, once a state signs an Memorandum of Agreement with ICE approving the program, jurisdictions may decide when, but not if, they wish to begin the program.
“Should a jurisdiction not wish to activate on its scheduled date in the Secure Communities deployment plan, ICE will gladly work with them to address any concerns and determine appropriate next steps,” Delgado added.
Washington D.C. did, however, terminate its agreement with ICE last summer, and it may still be possible to opt out at the state level.
New York balks
Two weeks after the meeting downtown, the New York City Council called on New York State Governor David Paterson to do just that, but the move seems unlikely. Although New York City has resisted signing on to the program, 11 local departments in the state have made moves to implement the fingerprint-sharing plan.
“Communities right now don’t have to implement it right away,” says John Caher, spokesman for the state’s Division of Criminal Justice Services. But Caher notes that the state has reason to support the program.
“New York State and in particular New York City is by far the premier target in this country for terrorism,” he says. “There is a legitimate rationale.”
New York City already cooperates with ICE through the Criminal Alien Program, which reviews the immigration records of all inmates at the Rikers Island jail complex. ICE interviews about 4,000 people at Rikers each year, 3,000 of which are pre-trial detainees, according to data obtained by the New Sanctuary Coalition in New York, a coalition of pro-immigration advocacy groups and individuals.
ICE detains about 3,200 Rikers inmates a year, who then get sent to facilities across the country, many in the southwest. Criminal charges are habitually dropped, but immigration detainees do not have the legal right to council, so many immigration detention cases go uncontested.
Make the Road New York is one of several immigrant-rights groups in the city that has opposed ICE’s presence at Rikers Island. They worry Secure Communities will exacerbate an already problematic program.
“Right now they have carte blanche to do what they want,” says Javier Valdez, deputy director of Make the Road. “We need to make sure that ICE is following the national rhetoric and going after the hardened criminals.”
Who gets deported?
ICE has said that Secure Communities places priority on prosecuting and deporting the most dangerous criminals, convicted of “level one” offenses like murder and other violent felonies. Critics are concerned that the program seeks to deport any undocumented or otherwise deportable but non-criminal immigrant found in the databases.
The numbers seem to support this. According to ICE’s, non-criminals seem to be keeping pace with Level 1 and 2 offenders. Last year, ICE booked 33,188 non-criminals and 11,173 Level 3 offenders, or those convicted of a misdemeanor, 36,390 Level 2 offenders, and 30,967 Level 1 offenders.
According to ICE spokesman Ortiz-Delgado, more aliens have been convicted of Level 2 and Level 3 crimes simply because more individuals commit those crimes. However, Ortiz-Delgado says, “ICE prioritizes the removal of criminal aliens convicted of Level 1 offenses, allocating resources to remove those aliens first.”
Those resources have grown exponentially in recent years. ICE appropriated $200 million for the Secure Communities program during fiscal year 2010. But that is only a small sliver of the $5.7 billion budget for the department. About $2.55 billion of that is allocated for detention and removal operations in fiscal year 2010, more than twice the amount budgeted in 2005.
Impact on Community Policing
Many local officials are concerned that the program will discourage immigrant groups from cooperating in police investigations or reporting crime, destroying often hard-earned trust between local law enforcement and communities living off the grid.
Lack of information on the Secure Communities program has also led many immigrants to speculate that local law enforcement and immigration enforcement are one and the same.
“Tight-knit communities have informal methods of communication which aren’t always 100 percent accurate,” says San Francisco Sheriff Michael Hennessey. “When they hear the story of someone who was not convicted of a crime being taken away and disappeared, I think it sends a chilling message to that community: ‘Don’t deal with the police because they are going to turn you over to ICE.’”
“The concern is that if the immigrant community, whether they are here legally or not, will be reluctant to report crimes or come forward as witnesses because they would be fearful of being caught up in the ICE dragnet,” Hennessey adds.
Hennessey says reports are circulating of domestic violence victims being deported after they reported their abuser.
“I know that there are cases where police have responded to a domestic violence call,” he says. “They arrest both parties. One of them is a victim, but they both get reported to ICE.”
Oversight and enforcement
According to federal reports, ICE does not have a strong track record of oversight and management of its enforcement and detention policies.
A 2007 report from the Government Accountability Office found that ICE did not regularly update its training materials and manuals. Some dated from before the Department of Homeland Security was created in 2002. “As a result,” the report said, “ICE officers are at risk of taking actions that do not support operation objectives and making removal decisions that do not reflect the most recent legal developments.”
Another GAO review released in January 2009, found serious issues with the implementation of the 287(g) program, which deputizes local law enforcement to act as immigration officers. ICE told investigators the program strove to enhance the security of communities “by addressing serious criminal activity committed by removable aliens.” Yet investigators found “some participating agencies are using their 287(g) authority to process for removal aliens who have committed minor offenses,” like speeding, open-container violations or public urination.
Like Secure Communities, the 287(g) program does not prohibit local government from pointing ICE toward people arrested for minor offenses. But the GAO report presented an issue that could grow as Secure Communities goes forward. “If all the participating agencies sought assistance to remove aliens for such minor offenses,” the report said, “ICE would not have the detention space to detain all of the aliens referred to them.”
ICE declined to respond to a question about the fiscal impact of the full implementation of Secure Communities, but both supporters and critics of the program believe ICE cannot implement Secure Communities across the country without significantly increasing its detention capacity.
Private companies, with the support of the federal government, have already begun to build new facilities to accommodate the growing number of individuals detained under Secure Communities.
One such facility in Farmville, Virginia, stands to receive about $213,000 in revenue and 300 jobs, according to a recent article in The Washington Post. Over the next year, the $21 million, privately-run center expects to hold over 1,000 detainees, most of them found through the Secure Communities program.
Immigration in the courts
But exactly how many people have been detained and deported through the Secure Communities program remains a mystery. ICE has evaded repeated attempts by groups to obtain specific data on the program.
Data does show, however, that immigration courts are throwing out a significant number of the immigration detention cases that come before them.
During the last three months of fiscal year 2010, courts rejected nearly one out of every three cases, according to a report released by The Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC), a non-partisan research and data distribution organization at Syracuse University. In some of the busiest courts—New York, Los Angeles, Miami, Oregon and Philadelphia—more than half the cases were judged to be without merit.
The data suggests that ICE is either not screening cases before they enter the legal system, or is failing to present compelling cases in court, according to Syracuse University professor Susan Long, co-director of TRAC. How much of this is tied to Secure Communities is impossible to know, Long said, because ICE refuses to release that data.
“There are hard choices here, whether we think about it from our tax dollars and efficiency, cheating security, or we think about it from the perspective of how people are being treated and the adverse impacts on people’s lives,” says Long.
“If we really want to have a reasoned debate here, which I think the vast majority of people do, we need to have the government release the data so that the facts will be on the table.”
Lisa Riordan Seville and Hannah Rappleye are freelance reporters living in Brooklyn.
Photo courtesy ICE
Read full entry »An Arizona-style immigration policy in Prince William County, Va., has reduced the number of illegal immigrants in the county, but its effect on violent crime is inconclusive, according to a study cited by the New York Times. The study was conducted by the University of Virginia and the Police Executive Research Forum at the request of the county. It looked at data from 2007, when the policy was proposed, through 2009. Prince William County began enforcing the tough immigration law, similar to one that was passed later in Arizona and is now facing legal challenges, in 2008. The county’s law required police officers to check the immigration status of anyone they had probable cause to believe was in the country illegally.
The county executive, Corey Stewart, pushed the policy in a campaign that polarized residents. Hispanic groups criticized the policy as inflammatory. The county’s police department, which paid for the study, expressed concern that the law would be expensive to carry out and that it would lead to accusations of racial profiling, and eight weeks later, it was suspended. It was later revised to apply only to those who had been arrested. The report found that there were 3,000 to 6,000 fewer illegal immigrants in the county in 2009, compared with 2006.
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Violent crime in California dropped dramatically during the same period of intense immigration to the state, found a new study by Barry Krisberg of the Berkeley Center for Criminal Justice, which is based at the School of Law. The study, which disputes the link between violent crime and immigration, also found that the increase in state prison populations is not related to the influx of immigrants.
Read the full report here.
Use the Crime Report for more information on immigration.
Read full entry »Joe Arpaio, the outspoken sheriff of Maricopa County, Ariz., has been sued by the U.S. Justice Department for refusing to cooperate with a civil-rights probe into police practices and jail operations, reports USA Today. Arpaio said the lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Phoenix, is disappointing given that he and his office were cooperating on the federal probe. "I thought we were really close to getting this resolved," the sheriff said. He said his deputies do not target Hispanic citizens because of their race, and said if the Justice Department had any evidence of racial profiling, they wouldn't be suing him to get records to prove that deputies profile.
The lawsuit comes after weeks of back-and-forth letters between the agencies, threats to strip the county of federal funding, and a meeting in Washington last week among attorneys to discuss the investigation. A spokeswoman for the Justice Department has said this is the first time in the last 30 years that a police or sheriff's agency has refused to cooperate with a Title VI investigation. Thursday's action marks the first time the agency is suing to compel access to documents and facilities. The investigation is being conducted under the authority of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which forbids discrimination related to programs that receive federal funds.
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Arizona's crime rate is at its lowest levels in the past forty years, as the Hispanic immigrant population has soared, found a new study from the Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice (CJCJ). Researchers also found that drug abuse was higher among the non-Hispanic population in Arizona. The report "Scapegoating Immigrants: Arizona's Real Crisis Is Rooted in Residents' Soaring Drug Abuse," was compiled using data from Arizona state agencies.
Read the report here.
Use the Crime Report for more information on immigration and crime.
Read full entry »The House's approval Tuesday of $600 million in border security funding appears to mark a shift away from technology in favor of more boots on the ground, reports the Christian Science Monitor. Half of the money will pay for 1,500 new border agents. Another chunk of nearly $200 million goes to the Justice Department-supported efforts of the US Marshals and other law enforcement agencies. Two surveillance drones ring up another $32 million.
In March, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano froze funding for a "virtual fence" begun under President Bush in 2006. The string of towers was intended to catch illegal border-crossers using cameras, radar, and ground sensors, but it was "plagued with cost overruns and missed deadlines," Secretary Napolitano said. The program had burned through some $2.4 billion between 2005 and 2009. Another border security measure with a high price tag but not many supporters: the 600 miles of fence erected along the border since 2005. A 2009 Government Accountability Office audit found that the fence – still unfinished – had cost $2.4 billion to build, and would require another $6.5 billion to maintain over the next 20 years.
Read full entry »Seven weeks before Arizona's new immigration law goes into effect, Hispanics are leaving the state, reports USA Today. Though no one has precise figures, reports from school officials, businesses and individuals indicate worried Hispanics — both legal and illegal — are leaving the state in anticipation of the law, which will go into effect July 29. Schools in Hispanic areas report unusual drops in enrollment. The Balsz Elementary School District is 75% Hispanic, and within a month of the law's passage, the parents of 70 students pulled them out of school, citing the law as the reason for leaving.
Businesses serving the Hispanic community say business is down, signaling that illegal immigrants are holding on to cash in anticipation of a move from the state, said David Castillo, co-founder of the Latin Association of Arizona, a chamber of commerce for nearly 400 first-generation Hispanic business owners. He called the situation "devastating."
Read full entry »Immigration law enforcement is a job that cops do not want, Salt Lake City Police Chief Chris Burbank writes in the Huffington Post. "The job of law enforcement is to keep communities safe," Burbank and two co-authors write. "When legislators require state and local law enforcement to enforce federal immigration policy, they make it much harder for officers to do their job. Sheriffs and chiefs have long voiced their concerns that asking officers to be immigration agents will scare undocumented community members out of calling on law enforcement for help. The story is even more severe. Police who are required to look for illegal immigrants are going to find fewer drug dealers."
A Consortium for Police Leadership in Equity report has found that one in three Salt Lake City residents are unwilling to report drug-related crimes when law enforcement can detain someone based on their immigration status. Burbank writes, "Given law enforcement's history as an effective tool of social oppression, it should not be surprising that many law enforcement officials across the nation are troubled at the proposition of mandatory immigration enforcement practices that appear motivated by prejudice--a point the report also supports--and are likely to result in increased crime....That is why so many in law enforcement are voicing their objection to a change in their jobs that would once again institutionalize racial profiling and biased policing--while depriving the public of their safety." Burbank wrote the piece with Phillip Atiba Goff and Tracie L. Keesee of the Consortium for Police Leadership in Equity.
Read full entry »San Francisco’s police chief denounces Arizona’s new legal crackdown on undocumented immigrants in an exclusive commentary for The Crime Report
As a police chief with over 30 years of law enforcement experience, I have a great appreciation for the impact laws can have on law enforcement, and on the lives of the people we are sworn to serve and protect. That’s why I am concerned about the law recently enacted by the Arizona legislature allowing police to inquire into immigration status if an officer has a “reasonable suspicion” that an individual is illegally in the country.
The law reflects, regrettably, a lack of understanding on the part of some of the general public about how difficult it would be to enforce it, and how it would limit their police forces’ ability to protect them from crime.
Before my current appointment to lead the San Francisco Police Department, I served for three years (until 2009) as chief of police in Mesa, Arizona—and that has given me an additional perspective on the issue that bill was meant to address.
I have three major areas of concern.
The bill will adversely affect public safety. It will incline immigrant communities to distrust the police, and further alienate immigrant and minority communities from law enforcement agencies and officers in Arizona. Victims of crimes such as domestic violence and assault will be reluctant to contact the police if they fear such contact will lead to investigations into the immigration status of the victim, of family members and neighbors, or of other persons close to the victim―perhaps leading to their detention and deportation.
The alienation between police and communities that we can reasonably expect will result from the law will occur not only where the victim of the crime is undocumented, but also in a great many other cases. This is because many households and communities are made up of individuals with varying immigration status, and frequently include at least one individual who is a U.S. citizen or an authorized immigrant. Therefore, out of fear of deportation of a family member or neighbor, many crime victims who are documented immigrants or U.S. citizens will decide not to contact the police.
This problem with the law was not cured by the amended language that relieves officers of the duty to inquire into immigration status if such inquiry would hinder or obstruct an investigation. Quite simply, the law sends an overriding message to immigrant communities: avoid law enforcement officers because it is presumed that they will be inquiring about immigration status. Minor nuances and exceptions in the law’s language will not affect this over-arching message.
Serious Consequences
The consequences are serious for both crime victims and law enforcement.
Police investigations will be impeded by the lack of information that could help them solve crime. And it will have an impact on public safety not only for immigrant communities, but all communities in the state of Arizona. It will create a vacuum in law enforcement, and criminals will be emboldened because they will have less reason to be concerned about being reported by victims or witnesses in immigrant communities, and less reason to fear any consequences for their criminal conduct.
San Francisco Police Chief George Gascon
I cannot overstate the critical importance of victim and witness cooperation in solving crimes and anything that diminishes that cooperation should be rejected.
The second issue I see with this law is that it creates a resource allocation problem. Police departments in Arizona, already spread thinly and under-funded, now have an added responsibility – to enforce federal immigration law. Enforcement will effectively divert resources from the primary mission of ensuring public safety. It will require that police undertake the complicated task of checking for federal immigration status. This is simply not something police officers are trained to do.
Neither is it the reason the vast majority of officers entered the policing profession. Men and women generally join the ranks of the police force to protect the vulnerable, solve and, whenever possible, deter crimes, apprehend criminals, and maintain the peace―not to act as federal immigration enforcement agents. Quite simply, police officers cannot take on immigration enforcement duties without taking substantial time away from these basic priorities, which are central to the obligations of a local law enforcement agency.
The Arizona law also gives a right to sue to anyone who believes that a particular police department is not vigorously enforcing federal immigration law. To avoid lawsuits, police departments will likely expend significant time, money and other resources to head off the filing of these lawsuits and defending themselves against claimed failures to take appropriate actions. This puts police departments and individual police officers in an untenable position.
The third problem from a law enforcement perspective is that the law is likely to lead to constitutional violations.
Danger of Racial Profiling
The criminal provisions of this law would be extremely difficult to enforce in a race-neutral manner. When police officers attempt to determine whether an individual they encounter on patrol is in the United States illegally, as the bill requires, they will likely rely upon race and ethnicity as factors in establishing reasonable suspicion to investigate potential violations. As a practical matter, even the amended language, which prohibits consideration of race, color or national origin, will not prevent the improper use of race or ethnicity.
Short of directly observing an individual actually crossing the border in a surreptitious manner, there are not reliable indicators that would give rise to a reasonable suspicion to believe that a person is unlawfully in the United States. In good conscience, we should not be putting police officers in this precarious position.
There will also be a greater incidence of pretextual stops of individuals of color in Arizona, as officers under pressure to comply with the law will use pretextual reasons to stop or question individuals they believe to be in this country illegally. [ED NOTE: pretextual refers to the legal ability of a police officer to question a suspect about matters not related to the specific reasons he or she was detained]
If an officer is motivated by race or ethnicity he or she can easily find a valid pretext for encountering an individual, whether by following a car until a minor traffic violation occurs or by approaching a pedestrian for “consensual” questioning. Consequently, the law permits, and inevitably makes more likely, the disparate treatment of Latinos and other persons of color. For example, when police receive a complaint about excessive noise by a neighbor, they may be more likely to interrogate residents of the home about their immigration status if they are Latino than if they are white. Such disparities in law enforcement based on race and ethnicity also will almost certainly lead to greater legal liabilities for police agencies.
Taking all of these considerable defects into account, I can only conclude that Arizona’s law is extremely harmful for the state’s local police departments. It undermines public safety by causing communities to distrust the police; it diverts resources from the goal of ensuring public safety and it discourages victims from coming forward. It will also likely lead to racial profiling, and thus subject local agencies to litigation.
I frankly can see nothing of value resulting from this legislation. At a time when law enforcement officials are attempting to engage all stakeholders through community policing practices, and to bring about the level of safety that all communities deserve, this is a significant step backwards.
Police officers should not be drawn into the enforcement of federal immigration statutes. This has been and should remain the jurisdiction of the federal authorities. I urge our leaders at the state and national levels to craft meaningful solutions to the issues surrounding immigration, and not concoct politically expedient legislation that, intended or not, will most assuredly produce even greater disaffection in our communities.
George Gascon was appointed police chief of San Francisco on August 7, 2009. He served as chief of the Mesa, Arizona police force between 2006-2009, and previously served as Assistant Chief in the Los Angeles Police Department. He is also a lawyer in the state of California.
Front page photo by Kevin Bondelli via Flickr.
Read full entry »President Obama is leaving little doubt that his administration will challenge Arizona's divisive new immigration law, saying the measure "has the potential of being applied in a discriminatory fashion," the Chicago Tribune reports. After a private meeting with Mexican President Felipe Calderon in the Oval Office, Obama denounced the law cracking down on illegal immigration and sent a clear message that a review led by Justice Department lawyers is likely to culminate in legal action.
Obama said that "a fair reading of the language of the statute" suggests those who appear to be illegal immigrants could be "harassed or arrested." Mexico is deeply unhappy over the Arizona law, which makes it a crime for immigrants not to carry registration papers. Mexican officials went so far as to issue a travel advisory that warns residents they could face harassment should they visit the state. Calderon used the news conference to make known his displeasure. Speaking through a translator, he called the law "discriminatory," adding that he opposes steps that "criminalize migration." Calderon is in Washington for two days of meetings.
Read full entry »One of the toughest proposed illegal-immigration measures in the country passed its final hurdle in the Arizona Legislature on Monday, moving on to face national media scrutiny, a growing firestorm of opposition and cautious consideration by the Governor's Office, reports the Arizona Republic. Senate Bill 1070 would, among other things, make it a state crime to be in the country illegally and require local police to enforce federal immigration laws. The state Senate approved the bill by a 17-11 vote. Gov. Jan Brewer has five days to consider whether she will sign the bill.
Advocacy groups and others have only increased their volume. The measure has captured the attention of national media for weeks. Petition signatures are being collected, prayer vigils are being planned and Brewer's office is being bombarded with phone calls and e-mails. Law-enforcement groups are divided on the issue. But lawmakers and illegal-immigration foes are backing the measure, calling the bill the latest sign the federal government has failed to deal with the issue. Brewer said she will review the legislation and will seek the advice of both her staff and outside experts in reviewing the constitutionality and other aspects of the bill, given that illegal immigration is usually the purview of the federal government. Brewer said she had concerns about the bill but wouldn't elaborate.
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