Police get tougher on immigrants

January 1, 2008
By RYAN PAGELOW
This summer Waukegan found itself in the middle of the debate over immigration when the city applied for a program that would train two local police officers to enforce federal immigration law.

It prompted a massive downtown demonstration by immigrant rights groups in July, and a boycott of businesses that didn't post signs opposing the application. Advocates of stricter enforcement of immigration laws also took to the streets and lit up the airwaves of conservative talk radio. While most of the demonstrators were local, outside groups on both sides jumped into the fray for saber-rattling over the larger issue of immigration reform.


City leaders say they would only use the immigration authority, known as 287(g) under a 1996 amendment to the Immigration and Nationality Act, to initiate deportation proceedings for legal and illegal immigrants convicted of violent offenses such as sexual assault, murder or drug violations.

Critics of the measure say procedures are already in place for deporting criminals through Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Giving that power to local officials could lead to racial profiling and increase distrust of police among illegal and legal immigrants, they say.

Nearly six months after the City Council approved applying to the program, the Waukegan Police Department is still waiting for the federal training on immigration enforcement and there's no end in sight.

"We haven't heard anything," Biang said. "We're on federal time. That's going to take some time. I'm not looking for anything to come up soon, nor was I expecting it."

Carpentersville, the first Illinois community to apply for 287(g), has been waiting for more than a year and still hasn't heard any word on when the Department of Homeland Security will officially sign off on it.

Neither community needed 287(g) approval to work with ICE officials to nab 58 alleged gang members, all Mexican nationals, in the Chicago area in August. The majority came from Lake County.

Earlier this month, with no prior fanfare, the Lake County Sheriff's Office followed Waukegan's lead and applied for six correctional officers in the jail to receive training and cross designation as ICE agents under 287(g).

Critics say they have anecdotal evidence that Waukegan's pursuit of deportation powers has already had a chilling effect on immigrants' willingness to report crimes, especially domestic abuse, for fear that police may now note their immigration status.

Biang said he hasn't seen a difference in the number of crimes reported or types of crimes reported since the city applied for the program.

Immigrant groups hope they will be consulted when the City of Waukegan and the Sheriff's Office hash out the memorandum of understanding with ICE which defines the scope of limitations of the authority to be designated under 287(g). In June, Waukegan Mayor Richard Hyde signed an agreement with the Rev. Gary Graf, pastor of Holy Family Parish in Waukegan, promising that if city police are granted deportation powers they would only use them to prosecute major felonies and would not be used to deport those guilty of minor traffic violations such as driving without a license. The church was filled to capacity with more than 1,000 people, and just as many or more were outside the church.

While immigrants felt they were getting pressed locally, they felt they were getting equally pressed on a national level this year. Their hopes for a path to citizenship for millions of undocumented immigrants were dashed when Congress failed to pass a bipartisan immigration reform bill.

It frustrated the 150,000 demonstrators who marched in Chicago in May for immigration reform, and those who want stricter enforcement of immigration laws and a wall extended along the porous U.S.-Mexico border as soon as possible.

The anti-immigrant sentiments that percolated out of the debate over immigration have spilled over to U.S. citizens who just happen to look like they're "illegal." A parent trying to register her child at a North Chicago school was allegedly questioned about her immigration status in August before her child was eventually enrolled in the district.

Local immigrant groups say one of the few positive things that has come out of the hoopla over immigration reform and local authorities applying for deportation powers, is that it has galvanized the often divided immigrant community to work together.

The Waukegan Leadership Council, a group of church, business and organization leaders which formed in the aftermath of the 287(g) hoopla in Waukegan, has started to register Latino voters in Waukegan. Their goal is to show the voting strength of Lake County's Hispanic community which numbers 133,422, or 19 percent of the county's population, according to 2006 census estimates.

"It's not just getting them to register. It's getting them out to the polls," said attorney Yolanda Torrez of Waukegan, one of the volunteers registering voters on weekends. "Our hope is next year we'll come together as a community where we can all live peaceably."

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