The New Immigration Police

From The Wall Street Journal:

Alabama state trooper Gary Hetzel usually stops people for going over the speed limit. Now, he sometimes arrests them for illegally crossing over the U.S. border, too.

Recently he pulled over a van for speeding and ended up detaining 14 undocumented immigrants who had paid smugglers at the Mexican border to transport them to Atlanta. The van's driver and co-driver were charged with human smuggling; the 14 immigrants were deported. "If I hadn't been trained, I would have just ticketed the driver for speeding and sent them on their way," said Mr. Hetzel.

Such actions are normally the province of federal immigration agents. But even though some police groups have concerns, a slew of cities and states in the U.S. are increasingly taking on the duty of verifying the immigration status of people stopped for traffic infractions and other violations. In Alabama, about 160 illegal immigrants have been arrested since the state entered a special partnership in 2003 with the Immigration and Customs Enforcement unit of Homeland Security, or ICE as it is known. Under this arrangement, officers such as Mr. Hetzel are specially trained in some immigration enforcement duties.

Forty-four of the 650 state troopers in the state, a figure that includes administrative and field officers, have taken the five-week training course and are now authorized to enforce federal immigration law. That training involves detecting false identification, understanding the details of federal immigration law as well as the pitfalls of racial profiling and other possible civil-rights violations.

The ICE partnership empowers local officers to temporarily detain someone who has violated federal immigration law -- something that they are typically not allowed to do. That is a valuable tool in states where there are few ICE agents. The trained officers usually don't participate in sweeps or actively search for illegal immigrants; the emphasis is on human smugglers and convicted felons that officers come across during the course of their duties.

The federal program to train local police officers in such duties has existed since 1996. Florida, the first state to join the federal program in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, tailored its version to help block possible terrorist infiltrators. Interest in the program has taken off recently as the national debate over illegal immigration has heated up.

In recent months, ICE has received requests from several states in New England and the Midwest, as well as counties in Texas and California, which are interested in immigration training.

This is a great program! Who could possibly think this is a bad idea?

Some police organizations and human-rights groups are concerned that deputizing local officers to handle immigration enforcement might violate civil liberties -- and undermine safety.

"A key concern is that state and local enforcement involvement in immigration can have a chilling effect on the relationship with the immigrant community in their jurisdiction," says Gene Voegtlin, legislative counsel for the International Association of Chiefs of Police. That could lead immigrants to become reluctant to report crimes or cooperate with officers investigating incidents. While the association, which has 20,000 members, hasn't taken an official stance on the ICE program, he said it also was concerned that the complexities of immigration law can create liability issues.

Some critics argue that federal authorities are specialists and therefore better suited to handling specific tasks such as immigration enforcement. Lisa Navarrete, a vice president for the National Council of La Raza, the largest Hispanic advocacy group in the U.S., says that local police officers who enforce immigration law are bound to engage in racial profiling, in part because they are stopping people they meet during the course of the day instead of pursuing specific investigations based on solid leads.

"That can result in harassment of immigrants who are here legally, simply because they are Latino and speak accented English," she said.

Some also worry that the federal government is trying to spread the burden of rounding up illegal immigrants at a time when state and local police departments are already strapped for resources. Virginia Kice, an ICE spokeswoman, stresses that the program is entirely voluntary. "We are not going out and soliciting participation," she says. But, "we are receiving inquiries from all over the country."

Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa recently said that the city wouldn't follow the lead of Costa Mesa and involve police officers in identifying illegal immigrants.

There you have it; LA Raza (NCLR), and other illegal alien support groups say it is bad. Well, than I imagine it is very good indeed.

If Hispanics wish to get upset over the inconvenience this is going to cost them, than they should take it out on their illegal alien brothers who have caused the problem.

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Crossposted from: The Uncooperative Blogger

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