City officials address illegal immigration

By Brian Ahern
Published: March 30. 2011 9:46PM

ST. GEORGE – Local illegal immigration opponents say aggressively enforcing state identity theft laws could be a way to tackle the problem without stepping on the toes of the federal government.


They showed up in droves Wednesday to the St. George City Council's public forum to hear Police Chief Marlon Stratton outline his department's efforts to pursue identity theft and fraud crimes.
"Targeting illegal activity can be a way to target someone who's been here illegally," said City Councilman Gil Almquist. "We'd love to tell the chief to do more, only to run the risk of costing you citizens a lot of money in litigation."


Since illegal immigrants arrive in the country with no official records and no legal means of obtaining them, they often resort to using fraudulent or stolen identification documents. Enforcing immigration laws is the sole duty of the federal government, but illegal immigration opponents say enforcing state identity theft laws is a means of dealing with the issue at a local level.


"Nobody else has done this," said St. George City Manager Gary Esplin. "We think it's an opportunity to make a serious impact on those crimes and deal with those people who haven't been dealt with before."


City Councilman Jon Pike added that enforcing identity theft laws was a way to address the immigration problem without worrying about costly lawsuits from the federal government.


"The beauty of this is these are state laws. It's a safe place to be," he said. "They may be existing laws, but we really haven't been going after them in this aggressive of a way. And now we are and it's going to make a big difference."


Citizens Council on Illegal Immigration Chairwoman Phyllis Sears said taking such an approach was long overdue.


"It had always been difficult to go after (illegal immigrants and businesses that employ them) because there weren't actual (local) laws that dealt with it," she said. "Now we have a method that makes it easier."


Though Stratton said illegal immigrants committed "a large percentage" of identify theft and fraud crimes, he was quick to note that his department's pursuit of the law would include identity thieves of all descriptions.


"We're looking at identity theft and fraud whether it be someone who is in the country illegally or not," he said. "The emphasis I want to make here is we take enforcement action based on criminal conduct."


With everyone arrested in Washington County put through an immigration database, illegal immigrants who take part in that criminal conduct would likely find themselves leaving the country following their arrest.


"The nice thing about it is it's treating everyone the same," Stratton said. "If they are in the country illegally and we arrested them for identity theft then they would be deported."

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