Thread: CA-Feds have poor control over local police wielding immigra

Feds have poor control over local police wielding immigration powers

March 9th, 2009, 3:00 am
posted by Teri Sforza,
Register staff writer

Sheriff Mike Carona once boasted that Orange County turned over more inmates for deportation than any other jail in the nation.

Costa Mesa’s mayor offered no apologies for checking the immigration status of jaywalkers and disorderly drunks who hadn’t even been arrested, much less convicted.

More than a year after Watchdogs Tony Saavedra and Norberto Santana Jr. investigated U.S. efforts to deport undocumented immigrants accused of crimes, the federal Governmental Accountability Office put a $60 million pricetag on the effort and reached many of the same conclusions Saavedra and Santana Jr. did:

Although the main objective of empowering local police to check federal immigration status is to enhance “the safety and security of communities by addressing serious criminal activity
committed by removable aliens,â€

And if the federal government did its job enforcing our immigration laws, we wouldn't have a problem.