A Lot Of Especially Confused Police Officers

Amy Alkon

I'm one of 40 "prominent Angelenos and Southern Californians" who has a quote in the L.A. Times on the way the confusing police directive for dealing with illegal immigrants, "Special Order 40" (more here), plays out in real life:

If I want a job cleaning your company's toilets, I'll have to present proof of citizenship and swear under penalty of perjury I'm legal, but if I mug you, beat you, and leave you for dead, it's no questions asked?

--Amy Alkon, syndicated columnist, advicegoddess.com

Another reality-based opinion from the LAT piece:

The misunderstanding about how to apply Special Order 40 is so pervasive that to this day, some officers apparently believe that the order prevents them from cooperating with immigration officials.

--Robert Greene, L.A. Times editorial board member and Opinion L.A. blogger
Here's the LAT's Richard Winton on what Chief Bratton says about it:

Los Angeles Police Chief William J. Bratton said Wednesday that the department's controversial policy on dealing with illegal immigrants was widely misunderstood by the public and some of his own officers, and he would clarify the rule in the next couple of weeks.
Bratton strongly defended the basic intent of the policy -- known as Special Order 40 -- which prohibits officers from initiating contact with individuals for the sole purpose of determining whether they are illegal immigrants.

The 29-year-old policy was designed to encourage illegal immigrants to cooperate with police without fear of being deported. It has come under renewed debate in recent weeks after the high-profile killing of a teenager, allegedly by an illegal immigrant gang member.

The scrutiny has spilled over into the City Council, where one member has proposed making it easier for police to inquire about known gang members' immigration status.

Bratton said the recent criticism is based on a faulty understanding of the rule.

"There is a misrepresentation, misinterpretation, misunderstanding on the part of all the concerned parties here -- whether it is immigrant advocates, immigrant haters, the talk shows, drive-time radio talk-show hosts," Bratton said. "When it comes to our situation in L.A ., . . . the vast majority of them don't know what . . . they are talking about."

Bratton acknowledged some of his own officers were also confused about the policy.

Uh, not just some. And anybody who reads the thing is bound to find it confusing.

For example, he said, he has heard accounts of officers who believe they are prohibited from calling federal immigration officials to report known gang members who have committed crimes and reentered the country illegally.

Officers privately say they often avoid the issue of a suspect's immigration status altogether -- largely out of fear it will anger superiors who see it as a lightning-rod issue.

"I don't understand that mind-set," Bratton said of such officers. "That is a cop-out."

Instituted in 1979 by then-Chief Daryl F. Gates, Special Order 40 states that "officers shall not initiate police action with the objective of discovering the alien status of a person." It is now incorporated into the LAPD manual.

I've talked to cops about this, including an FBI agent I met recently, and the way this plays out in real life is that police officers don't ask criminals about their immigration status.

Immigration status should not just be gingerly inquired about but rigorously checked upon arrest. And, in fact, I'd like to see all our immigration laws rigorously enforced. Am I willing to pay more for a head of lettuce? Even dollars more? Sure I am. And more for a carwash, too. Especially now, with the danger from terrorism, it's especially stupid for us to have porous borders and barely enforced immigration laws.

My pal Heather MacDonald, a Manhattan Institute fellow, testified before the House on "sanctuary laws" like Special Order 40, which she calls "a serious impediment to stemming gang violence and other crime" and "a perfect symbol of this country's topsy-turvy stance towards illegal immigration."

Plus, we're paying to keep these people in jail instead of dumping them over the border where they belong. From MacDonald's testimony:

-- The L.A. County Sheriff reported in 2000 that 23% of inmates in county jails were deportable, according to the New York Times.
As for the contention by Chief Bratton and others that Special Order 40 isn't what caused the murder of 17-year-old Jamiel Shaw, as the Culver City Police picked his killer up first, blah blah blah...well, how about this one, from MacDonald's testimony in 2005? (Surely just one of numerous examples in Los Angeles):

Five months ago, Carlos Barrera, an illegal Mexican in Hollywood, Ca., mugged three people, burglarized two apartments, and tried to rape a five-year-old girl. Barrera had been deported four years ago after serving time for robbery, drugs, and burglary. Since his reentry following deportation, he had been stopped twice for traffic violations. But thanks to special order 40, the police had never mentioned him to the immigration authorities, reports the New York Times.

Yoohoo, Chief Bratton?
http://www.advicegoddess.com/archives/2 ... speci.html