Thread: Kobach: Local cops OK for immigration work

Kobach: Local cops OK for immigration work

By Steve Fry

October 20, 2011

THE CAPITAL-JOURNAL


The use of local and state law enforcement officers to enforce immigration law isn't intruding into a federal function, Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach said Thursday.

"It is not encroachment," Kobach said during a symposium focusing on illegal immigration and sponsored by the Washburn University School of Law.

Congress has contemplated and invited states into the regulation of immigration, he said.

Kobach was one of three members of a panel assessing the immigration landscape.

"Breaching Borders: State Encroachment into the Federal Immigration Domain?" is a two-day program conducted at the Bradbury Thompson Alumni Center on the Washburn campus. About 80 people attended the Thursday morning session.

Other members of the panel were:

â–* Nora V. Demleitner, dean and professor of Hofstra University School of Law on Long Island, N.Y., who has taught and written about immigration law and criminal law, specializing in sentencing and collateral sentencing consequences.

â–* Patrick J. Charles, a lawyer who formerly was a legal analyst for the Immigration Reform Law Institute and is an historian for the 352nd Special Operations Group in the U.S. Air Force. Charles has a law degree from the Cleveland-Marshall School of Law and is the author of two law review articles that are standards of review for immigration.

Kobach was chief adviser on immigration law and border security to U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft from 2001 to 2003 and was an architect of anti-terrorism programs after 9/11, including the system to fingerprint and register high-risk visitors to the United States.

Kobach earned a bachelor's degree with highest distinction from Harvard University; has a doctorate in political science from Oxford University in England; and a law degree from Yale Law School. He has written statutes focused on illegal immigration.

Kobach said no one would say only the federal Drug Enforcement Administration should investigate drug cases or that only the FBI and U.S. Marshal's Service should investigate certain offenses.

"So it is with immigration," he said.

There are only 6,000 to 7,000 federal agents who investigate immigration, while the New York City Police Department has 35,000 officers, Kobach said, and it is impossible for federal officers to police immigration alone.

The 1996 Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act invites local law enforcement agencies to help with immigration issues, he said.

Sixty law enforcement agencies have officers deputized to act as federal Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers, Kobach said.

Kobach outlined some fiscal costs of illegal immigration:

â–* Open immigration into a welfare state will drain the welfare benefits, he said.

â–* Nationwide, an illegal immigrant household costs $19,688 a year net.

â–* Arizona spent $2.6 billion in a year based on services of all kinds to illegal immigrants.

â–* In Hazleton, Pa., the cost of the community's English as a second language program in the 2003-2003 school year was $136,000, but in 2006-2007 the program cost $1.1 million. That was due to the increase of illegal immigrants working in a local meat-packing plant.

Kobach favors "attrition through enforcement" to fight illegal immigration, which means ratcheting up enforcement of existing laws so that illegal immigrants "self deport," leaving the United States on their own.

Demleitner noted immigration statutes in several states that bar illegal immigrants from entering into a business agreement and to have a driver's license. Other statutes outlaw transporting or shielding an illegal immigrant.

Demleitner said she was "pessimistic about real reform" of immigration.

http://cjonline.com/news/2011-10-20/kob ... ation-work

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