Immigration enforcement law won't help police catch criminals
Posted by the Asbury Park Press on 10/1/06
BY AREF ASSAF

The passage of the Immigration Law Enforcement Act of 2006 poses serious challenges to New Jersey police departments and the citizens they are empowered to serve and protect. Several towns have begun introducing and implementing polices to deprive illegal immigrant of town services, subjecting them to discriminatory and sometimes vengeful acts.
The law is promoted as a tool to protect us from immigrants who have been served deportation papers but who continue to "hide out" in local communities, committing violent acts. What they are not telling the public is that the law authorizes local enforcement officers to prosecute non-citizens for civil immigration violations. Consequently, the law opens the doors for the random spot-checking of anyone (citizen or non-citizen) who police suspect lacks immigration papers.

The deputizing of police officers as immigrations agents is  known as 287(g), for a section of the 1996 Immigration and Nationality Act that allows local officers, after being trained, to “identify, process, and when appropriate, detain immigration offenders they encounter during their regular, daily law-enforcement activity.” Field officers receive five weeks of training with immigration agents, including how to tap into immigration databases and process aliens for deportation proceedings.

Since the question of legal status will not be considered for white suspects or violators, New Jersey law enforcement authorities would be engaged in a statewide racial profiling of all non-white residents.
Police departments across the country have warned Congress that the new law is not going to improve their ability to track down immigrant criminals.

It is more likely to have the opposite effect. Instead of helping police, it will create a wall of silence in immigrant communities that will obstruct any kind of police work that relies on immigrant witnesses and informants. This will be especially detrimental for immigrant women trying to free themselves from their abusers.
Community workers have known for years that criminals who prey on immigrants keep their victims silent by threatening to have them deported. Shelter workers can point to hundreds of cases where victims of abuse decide to keep quiet because of their immigration status. There are also plenty of horror stories where immigrant victims of sexual assault and other crimes come forward only to find themselves being investigated by the police.
This is why Congress passed special laws (like the 1994 and 2000 Violence Against Women acts) that allow immigrant victims of abuse and assault to gain legal status on their own.
By extending civil immigration enforcement to local police, the law would make battered immigrants even more fearful of turning to the police and government caseworkers. Moreover, these fears are not just limited to people who have entered the U.S. illegally. They will also creep into the lives of immigrants whose temporary work visas expired while waiting for their green card and to legal immigrants who have close friends or relatives who are undocumented. Under the new law, all of these immigrants will have some reasonable fear that any interaction they have with local police could result in their detention and swift deportation.
Instead of helping police track down immigrant criminals, the law will only add to the worries of law-abiding immigrants. It will also create a climate where people who victimize immigrants will have more advantage to keep their victims quiet. It is not clear how this will enhance public safety for immigrants or citizens.
While the bill's title and the rhetoric surrounding it portray this as anti-crime legislation, it is clearly more than that. The bill authorizes police to enforce federal civil immigration laws; it allows police to act as immigration officers.
State and local police are authorized to enforce criminal immigration laws and to notify federal immigration officials about foreign nationals in their custody who have committed crimes. But this bill requires police to also enforce civil immigration laws, or lose federal funds earmarked to reimburse them for detaining criminal lawbreakers.
To facilitate this new role for local police, the bill expands the scope of the National Crime Information Center database — accessed in routine situations by police to identify wanted criminals — to include people who have civil immigration violations.
This bill would impose significant new reporting requirements on these critically understaffed and under-funded agencies. As it is now, law enforcement departments are stretched beyond capacity. They do not have the extra time, money or staff to take on what is rightly a federal duty.
By turning police into immigration agents, the new law ensures that more immigrants avoid contact with local law enforcement, putting entire communities at risk. Word will quickly spread among immigrant communities that if they — as victims, witnesses or concerned residents — have any contact with police, they or their family members will risk deportation. They will remain silent and our streets will be less safe as a result. Experience shows that this fear will extend not only to contact with local police, but also to the fire department, hospitals and the public school system.
Who knows better about keeping our communities safe — Congress, or our state and local police?
Aref Assaf is president of the American Arab Forum, Paterson.

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