Officials need to keep residents in loop about progress, arrests
Published: 05:48 p.m., Tuesday, June 8, 2010
Comments (3)

When the city of Danbury entered into its Immigration and Customs Enforcement partnership last September, it did so with the promise that the alliance between local law enforcement and federal officials was not a ruse to round up immigrants.

The training of Danbury detectives was completed in February, and the program is now running. It's time for residents to be informed about how things are going.

Danbury police have acknowledged that arrests were made recently as part of the ICE partnership, and last week Police Chief Al Baker told The News-Times that details would be available soon in the form of a monthly report.

On Tuesday, Danbury police spokesman Detective Lt. Thomas Michael said the department's attention has been focused on memorial arrangements following the tragic hit-and-run death last week of Officer Donald Hassiak. The monthly report, Michael said, might be available at the end of the week.

We understand the department's need to deal with the death of a colleague and that filing a report is nowhere near as great a priority.

We do look forward to learning more soon, though, about the progress of Danbury's ICE partnership. We also encourage the Danbury Police Department to consider weekly, rather than monthly, ICE reports.

A free flow of information won't necessarily convince skeptics who see the collaboration as having anti-immigrant intent. Nor will it win over those who believe it doesn't go far enough toward stopping illegal immigration.

But being as open as possible will give people a basis for evaluation and, hopefully, dialogue.

When the deal took effect, Baker and Mayor Mark Boughton said joining resources with ICE would protect Danbury's population as a whole -- undocumented residents included -- from crime brought from outside America's borders.

There were and are skeptics who might recall what the federal government admits were abuses in ICE's past. They might remember Boughton's 2005 call for the deputizing of state troopers as immigration law enforcers.

There is much that will continue to be said about legal and illegal immigration in Danbury, and that conversation will be heated at times. But we hope the ICE partnership will perform as advertised, protecting the public and the respecting all of the city's residents with transparency.

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