Thread: CO:Recommendations released on illegal immigration

Recommendations released on illegal immigration
posted by: Dan Boniface written by: Thanh Truong 7 hrs ago


DENVER - Roughly four months after a deadly accident claimed the life of a young boy and two women, a panel convened at the request of Gov. Bill Ritter released a report and recommendations on ways local authorities can better handle the problem of illegal immigration.

"The bottom line is that we have a number of different layers of law enforcement, federal law enforcement and federal immigration operates in an entirely different plane from local cops on the street," said Lance Clem, spokesman for the Colorado Department of Public Safety, which drafted the report.

Last September in Aurora, 3-year-old Marten Kudlis died when a truck slammed into an ice cream shop he was in. The two women in the truck, Patricia Guntharp and Debra Serecky, also died.

Police say Francis Hernandez, an illegal immigrant who had previously had numerous encounters with law enforcement, was speeding in a separate car and struck the truck, triggering the accident. The accident sparked public outrage and pushed the divisive illegal immigration debate back into the spotlight.

The 67-page report examined many facets of illegal immigration, specifically the encounters local law enforcers have with potential illegal aliens. There are more than two dozen recommendations in the report including: improving communication channels between U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and local authorities, making federal fingerprint records to local officials, and increased training of immigration policies and procedures.

With all the recommendations, there remains one major problem. Local authorities can not easily check the immigration status of the people they encounter on a regular basis.

"It's practically impossible for an officer on the street to do that, it can be done, but it takes time, and it requires an unreasonable amount of time, and beat cops don't have three to four hours to hear back if the person they pulled over is legal," Clem said.

"There is no magic button, there's no one place, there's no one computer that we can go to see if a person is here legally or not," said Aurora Police Chief Dan Oates.

The Aurora Police Department was outspoken about its frustrations with the lack of communication between federal immigration authorities and local law enforcement after the accident. Oates supports the recommendations coming out of the working group and says they can help local street officers, deputies and state troopers navigate the complicated web of immigration checks.

That said, Oates recognizes that the local recommendations, statutes or ordinances can only go so far and real reform will have to come from Washington.

"Fundamentally local law enforcement, Colorado law enforcement including at the state level can't solve the immigration for the country until the borders are secured," said Oates.

http://www.9news.com/news/local/article ... &catid=346


RELATED THREAD:
CO-Illegal immigrant didn't cause fatal crash, lawyer says
http://www.alipac.us/ftopic-131876-0.html

Enforce our immigration laws. Use deporation and attrition strategies, stop the "achor baby Scam", severly fine employers and/or those that aid and abed the criminals.

Colorado immigration panel urges leverage for cops
By Tim Hoover
The Denver Post
Posted: 01/07/2009 12:30:00 AM MST
Updated: 01/07/2009 02:40:51 AM MST

A panel looking at how local authorities enforce immigration laws says state legislators should give police more power to seize the cash and other assets of illegal immigrants who commit crimes.

And the federal government should develop a national ID card that uses fingerprints or DNA to help police learn whether someone is in the country legally.

Those are just two of the recommendations from the 31-member immigration working group that Gov. Bill Ritter appointed last year following an Aurora case in which three people died in a collision involving a vehicle driven by an illegal immigrant.

The bulk of the recommendations puts much of the onus for enforcement on the federal government and pleads for Congress to address the issue. Several recommendations call for more funding to help local law enforcement agencies deal with the problem.

"Fundamentally, it (immigration) is a federal issue, and fundamentally, more resources at the state and federal level need to be directed" to the problem, said Peter Weir, Colorado Department of Public Safety director and the panel chairman.

Ritter, a former prosecutor, was still looking over the recommendations but praised the panel for its work.

"I think it's telling that this problem is a pretty complex one," the Democratic governor said, "because at the end of the day, there's no panacea, there is no one solution, to solve how law enforcement officers at the state or federal level must treat this issue."

Ritter formed the panel after the case of Francis Hernandez, an illegal immigrant accused of driving a car that was involved in a wreck that killed three people in Aurora in September.

Hernandez, a native of Guatemala, had been arrested many times, and there were dozens of warrants for his arrest for failing to appear in court. He also had never possessed a driver's license.

Other recommendations include:

• Getting federal funding to expand a program that trains local police agencies to enforce immigration laws in cooperation with federal authorities.

• Expanding federal detention space for illegal immigrants and loosening federal requirements for local jails to house illegal immigrants.

• Getting the federal government to fully compensate local law enforcement agencies for the costs of detaining illegal immigrants.

• Revising state laws on human trafficking to mirror federal law.

In one of its more controversial recommendations, the panel said lawmakers should revise the state's asset forfeiture laws "to deter criminal activity, including those committed by illegal aliens."

Proceeds should go to pay law enforcement agencies' costs in apprehending criminals, the report recommended.

In 2002, the state significantly tightened up asset seizure laws, requiring that assets can be seized only when someone has been convicted of a crime and when prosecutors prove by clear and convincing evidence the assets were gotten as the result of a crime or used to commit the crime. The seized assets also no longer enrich police departments and instead go to local governments and for drug treatment programs.

Ritter said he would listen to proposals to use asset seizures in some cases, such as when drugs are being imported, but did not support the indiscriminate seizures of illegal immigrants' assets.

Tim Hoover: 303-954-1626 or thoover@denverpost.com
http://www.denverpost.com/statehouse08/ci_11389148

They are looking at the problem the wrong way. Get the Illegals when they show up to the dmv, hospital, and welfare offices. detain them there when they can't provide proof of citizenship!!!!!