Thread: Immigration debate on Arkansas’ doorstep

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Immigration debate on Arkansas’ doorstep
BY MARK MINTON

Posted on Sunday, October 30, 2005


Arkansas is poised to become only the third state to empower its own police to arrest illegal aliens, extending the reach of overburdened immigration agents but edging closer to the white-hot core of the immigration debate.

How aggressively should illegal aliens who aren’t otherwise lawbreakers be swept up and deported ?

The argument extends from corporate boardrooms to western ranches. But the police who encounter aliens every day on the streets, and often have little choice but to let them go, have always had an out : State and local police have not traditionally had the authority to arrest aliens who aren’t breaking a law.

Even though the aliens’ presence in the United States violates federal immigration laws, it generally has been considered a civil matter for federal immigration authorities to pursue, not a crime concerning the police.

Many say it should be a low priority, anyway, because most immigrants are only coming to the United States to work at low-level jobs that drive the economy.

But with an estimated 11 million illegal aliens now living in the country, including some sure to pose security risks, proponents of tougher immigration enforcement are taking new tacks to enlist the nation’s 600, 000 police officers to help detain and deport them.

In Arkansas, a new law authorizes the Arkansas State Police and the Arkansas Highway Police to negotiate an agreement with the U. S. Homeland Security Department under which select officers who pull over aliens on federal highways could arrest them for immigration violations.

Only Alabama and Florida have troopers empowered to make such arrests now. Republican state Reps. Jeremy and Timothy Hutchinson, nephews of former Undersecretary for Homeland Security Asa Hutchinson, sponsored the law, Act 907 of 2005, along with Rep. Michael Lamoureux, R-Russelville. It squeaked through the House and Senate by one-vote margins, the only immigration bill to survive the past session of the General Assembly.

A ‘FORCE MULTIPLIER’ The Hutchinson brothers said they proposed the bill foremost as a national-security measure, noting that police stopped three of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorists in the weeks before the attacks, but released them on traffic tickets.

Jeremy Hutchinson said they also intended the law as a “force multiplier� to help the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement bureau round up run-of-themill illegals, who are slipping in droves through gaping holes in the nation’s immigration system.

“I think it’s very reasonable,� Jeremy Hutchinson said. “It’s not doing anything but allowing our law enforcement to enforce the law.�

Similar initiatives have produced controversy but relatively few arrests. Two years after Alabama’s Department of Public Safety entered into an agreement with the federal Homeland Security Department empowering 21 state troopers to enforce immigration laws, it has netted 145 aliens.

“We haven’t made an enormous amount of arrests, but we didn’t expect to,� said Martha Earnhardt, spokesman for the Alabama police agency. She said the state is pleased with the results and is now in the process of doubling the number of troopers involved.

They aren’t making raids on workplaces. They deal only with the aliens they encounter in their normal duties, said Clifton Lollar, acting assistant special agent for Immigration and Customs Enforcement in Alabama. He said the state police have to complete five weeks of training on immigration laws, and have a working knowledge of the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations, before they qualify to make the arrests. They also must report all immigration arrests to federal supervisors within 24 hours. The same conditions would apply in Arkansas, once Arkansas State Police Director Steve Dozier initiates an agreement with Homeland Security. Facing higher priorities, Dozier hasn’t started working on that. “Not even a meeting,â€? said state police spokesman Bill Sadler. Jeremy Hutchinson said the law authorizes but does not compel Dozier to make an agreement, and there is no deadline. “I’m not going to try to push it,â€? Hutchinson said. “I know he wants it. He testified for it. I trust him to move in that direction at the appropriate time.â€? There have been other attempts to bring state and local police officers to bear on the mushrooming illegal-immmigration problem â€â€

I'm totally shocked that Huckabee would agree to this. Has he? He loves illegals. I'd like to see who is paying his campaign contributions, perhaps big business like....oh maybe.... chicken companies???

Definately police generally have good judgement and if they deem someone is bad news, they have the obligation to contact officials who would make INS/ICE would actually do something!

Therein lies the rub. They can contact but that doesn't mean anything will be done. They may have the authority to do that but it probably only means tons of paperwork on their part.

Ultimately, I think they should have the power but the INS (or ICE, whatever they call it these days) should have the RESPONSIBILITY to make sure it happens.