Thread: Police risk much by reporting illegals

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Helping the feds

Police risk much by reporting illegals

June 14, 2005

You might think it's no big deal if one law enforcement agency tips off another about what it believes to be criminal activity. Well, usually, it isn't – except when you're talking about local police departments tipping off the U.S. Border Patrol. Then it becomes a very big deal.

Consider the controversy regarding last year's immigration sweeps in Southern California and whether they were the result of tips from local law enforcement agencies.

The Border Patrol has insisted they were, but now the evidence seems to say otherwise. It includes documents about the raids released by federal officials and the emphatic insistence by police departments in the impacted area – which includes parts of Riverside, San Diego, and San Bernardino counties – that they most certainly did not share with Border Patrol agents the whereabouts of suspected illegal immigrants.

Local law enforcement agencies have never been enthusiastic about enforcing federal immigration law. That includes the San Diego Police Department, where the policy is that its officers "shall not make an effort to look for violations of immigration law." However, the department also directs officers to assist the Border Patrol when assistance is requested.

And it's easy to see why local police departments refuse to enforce federal immigration law. For starters, it is not their job. Local agencies don't have the training or resources. Beyond that, enforcing immigration law is something that could actually get in the way of them doing their job. These local agencies can't police a community without enjoying the trust of the citizens and, in communities with large numbers of foreign-born residents, nothing withers away trust more quickly than the perception that anyone who goes into the police department to report a robbery, assault or rape will be turned over to the Border Patrol. Once that perception takes hold, people are less likely to report crimes. Criminals get away, and crime flourishes.

Which is not to say that local law enforcement agencies should refuse to cooperate with the Border Patrol. If they run across someone who has broken a state law who also turns out to be here illegally, then that person should be turned over to the Border Patrol. And if they run across so-called criminal aliens, or illegal immigrants wanted for other offenses, then they should alert the federal authorities. But there is a big difference between that and local police officers acting as surrogates for immigration agents or tipping off Border Patrol agents about suspected illegal immigrants.

One sounds like good common sense. The other, like a recipe for disaster.

What a load of bilge! Law enforcement is paid for by the citizens. If the illegals are breaking federal law or local law shouldn't make one whit of difference.

It boggles my mind...simply makes my head spin....with the logic of needing the 'trust' of illegals...DEPORT THEM, DAMMIT...I care not one whit about their trust. They should be able to trust completely that if they're found here they're deported without further ado.

RR

Following this line of reasoning, maybe local police should not be interfering with bank robberies, either, bank robbery being a federal offense ...

Does anyone here care about the trust of illegal immigrants? They will just act nice to our faces then stab us in the back later on. We will never gain the trust of them.

Originally Posted by ChrisF202

They will just act nice to our faces then stab us in the back later on.

They weren't acting very "nice to our faces" in Baldwin Park.
Or Garden Grove, or Las Vegas, either.

Originally Posted by ChrisF202

Does anyone here care about the trust of illegal immigrants? They will just act nice to our faces then stab us in the back later on. We will never gain the trust of them.

I dont trust them and it's all their fault, not mine. I will always be leery of people who I feel aren't here legally.