Thread: FL: Santa Rosa Sheriff against illegal immigrant round-ups,

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Santa Rosa Sheriff against illegal immigrant round-ups, calls for task force
JILL NOLIN
Friday August 10th, 2007

Santa Rosa County Sheriff Wendall Hall says that forming a regional task force to address illegal immigration would be the first step toward achieving meaningful change.

"I think everybody - everyone who is in this country - should be here legally, but it is not a simple local problem," Hall said.

"It should be at least a four-county problem that we should sit down and address as a whole and come up with something that would be effective."

He does not believe "round-ups" at construction sites does that.

"Absolutely not," Hall said when asked if he would use that tactic.

Okaloosa County Sheriff Charlie Morris has been criticized for taking the same position.

"We are doing something about it (illegal immigration), but we have to operate within the scope of the law," Morris said Friday.

"No matter what you do to convince people, if you're not rounding people up, you're not doing anything," he added.

Hall's reasons are similar: His deputies will not target any group based on nationality, and doing large sweeps without federal support would only exhaust local resources.

Bay County Sheriff Frank McKeithen was said to have used that tactic. But he has said since then that earlier news reports have overstated what is being done.

McKeithen says deputies are targeting construction sites and checking employee documents at random. They are also charging individuals who run with loitering and trespassing, but he says they are not showing up in marked patrol cars.

Bay's Sheriff's Office considers the tactic effective, said spokeswoman Ruth Sasser. The proof is at the construction sites, where deputies are finding fewer illegal immigrants, she said.

"That's a good thing. We have nothing against people coming to work here if they're doing it legally," Sasser said.

Morris has been criticized for not being as aggressive as McKeithen. One man has even announced that he will run against him in 2008 because the issue.

But Morris has remained adamant. While he said his deputies will continue to arrest illegal aliens on state charges, he equates the "round ups" up to racial profiling.

He has placed information on the Sheriff's Office Web site at www.sheriff-okaloosa.org to explain what's being done in Okaloosa County.
Morris and Hall say they are doing all they can under the law to arrest illegal immigrants.

"Washington is not taking a strong enough approach," Hall said. "For me, as a local sheriff of this county, to go out on my own without the support of state representatives … I think those efforts would be fruitless."

Morris agrees that a task force could be effective, but said federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement must be involved.

A number of attempts to contact Walton County Sheriff Ralph Johnson over the past two weeks were unsuccessful. Lt. Bryan Maule, Johnson's spokesman, said that he has been too busy.

Instead, Maule sent out a press release stating some of the measures being taken by the Sheriff's Office, which are available on its Web site at www.waltonso.org.

http://www.nwfdailynews.com/article/7533

Morris agrees that a task force could be effective, but said federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement must be involved.

I.C.E can't be involved if you don't call them.