Thread: Trying to boot the bad guys back home (op/ed)

Link

Trying to boot the bad guys back home
GORDON DILLOW
Register columnist
April 24, 2005

When it comes to combating crime, who should have more political clout? The community of immigration activists? Or the larger community of all law-abiding citizens?

That's something Orange County Sheriff Mike Carona may have to consider as he ponders his proposal to let sheriff's deputies use federal immigration laws to take career criminals off the streets.

Under the current system, sheriff's deputies, like most other local law-enforcement personnel, do not investigate or detain anyone solely for violation of immigration laws. By department policy, they aren't allowed to arrest anyone just for being here illegally.

The theory is that if local police are seen as enforcers of immigration laws, then illegal immigrants won't report crimes or cooperate with the cops for fear of being deported – which may be true. I mean, if I'm an illegal immigrant who's a witness to a crime, and I think that cooperating with police will earn me a one-way bus ride to the border, I'm most likely going to be what cops used to call a "hoomie" - as in "Who, me? I didn't see nothin'."

On the other hand, if I'm an illegal immigrant who's involved in criminal activity, I should be getting that bus to the border - and it shouldn't matter if it's the feds or the local cops who put me on it.

"Historically, immigration has been seen as a federal problem," Carona noted in his draft proposal on the issue. "However, in a post-September 11th world ... it is irresponsible for local governments to ignore matters of national security when they involve criminal alien offenders."

Sheriff Mike's got that right. It is irresponsible for local officials to ignore national security, or fail to use every legal and constitutional means to protect the public from criminals.

And there's clearly no shortage of "criminal alien offenders" that we need protecting from.

According to the California Department of Corrections, there are about 18,000 foreign nationals in state prisons - a little over 10 percent of all inmates – most of whom came here illegally. Locking them up costs taxpayers more than half a billion dollars a year. On any given day in Orange County, about 600 foreign nationals with "immigration holds" on them are locked up in county jails, at a cost of $18 million a year.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying that all or even most illegal immigrants are dangerous criminals. In fact, the percentage of illegal immigrants and foreign nationals in state prison is roughly the same as their percentage of the state population as a whole - that is, about 10 percent to 15 percent.

Still, while most immigrants simply want to work, it'd be nice if we could bounce the bad guys out of here before they commit more crimes. Which is what the sheriff's proposal is designed to do.

Under the draft proposal, several hundred deputies would be specially trained in immigration law and the use of immigration records. If they suspected a guy of being involved in serious criminal activity, they could run a federal records check to see if he was an illegal immigrant and if he had previously been deported or convicted of a felony - and if he had been, they could arrest him and turn him over to the feds for prosecution or deportation.

It's really not all that much of a change. Deputies still would not be allowed to arrest anyone solely for being an illegal immigrant. And the program wouldn't substantially reduce the problems of illegal immigrants driving without licenses or insurance, or of overcrowded schools and hospital emergency rooms.

But despite the modest nature of the proposal, when Carona ran it by a group of 50 mostly Latino community representatives at a meeting last week, they almost unanimously gave it the bum's rush.

"We object to this," Amin David of Los Amigos of Orange County, a Latino advocacy group, told me later. "We've been partly successful in getting them (illegal immigrants) to trust the local police ... but this would have a chilling effect on the community."

And despite assurances from Carona that only actual criminals would be targeted, David said the proposal would be a "slippery slope" that could lead to "racial profiling" of all immigrants.

Well, sheriff's officials have insisted that the draft plan is just that, a draft, and that Carona will work out a plan he hopes will be accepted by Latino community leaders sometime this year - although given the initial response, it's hard to imagine that any proposal to use local police to enforce any immigration laws would meet with their approval.

Which is unfortunate - especially since immigrants suffer as much as or even more than anybody else at the hands of criminal illegal immigrants.

So I guess we'll see whose voice speaks loudest at the sheriff's department. And regardless of your race, ethnicity or place of origin, if you're a member of the community that wants criminals taken off the streets, I hope that voice will be yours.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Gordon Dillow may be reached at (714) 796-7953 or by e-mail at gldillow@aol.com.

"We've been partly successful in getting them (illegal immigrants) to trust the local police ... but this would have a chilling effect on the community."

I am so sick of hearing this

So I guess we'll see whose voice speaks loudest at the sheriff's department. And regardless of your race, ethnicity or place of origin, if you're a member of the community that wants criminals taken off the streets, I hope that voice will be yours.

Come on people....whatever happened to majority rules.

Show them how loud we can be.

I have an idea that I also posted in another Forum Topic, Alaskaland.

Why not have the Military Police pick them up and house them in the Brig? From what I read, State Prison is a cake walk compared to the Brig. Also the Federal Government would be responsible for housing and feeding them instead of reducing the budgets of each State. Not to mention prosecuting them. Upon the reduction of the Federal coffers, the Feds might be more interested in the removal of all illegal aliens.

Perhaps if the illegal aliens knew they'd be sent to the Brig upon capture instead of a state jail or prison (or just released back into society to continue their criminal behavior), it would not make coming to America illegally sound like such a great idea.

Any thoughts?

I don't think Gitmo is big enough . . .

If you build it, they will come!!!

Or get sent there!

Why don't they just do stings like when the want to catch fugitives and have fake ticket giveaways.Just have an undercover unit pose as illegal day labor employers.When they jump in the car the don't ask if the driver is a cop or not.

Good idea good12me!! But here's what I think. Detention centers would be very brief stays...a few days. No papers, custody, bus comes, you're taken home to the country of origin, borders are sealed so you can't possibly get back in.

No Papers

No freedom

No Stay

No Return

There are 50,000,000 so they can't stay in detention very long. They'll need to be safely returned home within 2 to 3 days.

Brig doesn't have unchecked bands of armed deathdealing same sex rapists gangs to deal with 24 hrs a day.Or guards in fear of their lives from the inmates.

Good12me wrote

If you build it, they will come!!!

Thank you Good, I really needed a laugh right about now. Good one!

Brig doesn't have unchecked bands of armed deathdealing same sex rapists gangs to deal with 24 hrs a day.Or guards in fear of their lives from the inmates.

No the brigs probably won't hold all of the illegal aliens. That's why we should do it!

If they are dropped off at the gate at Camp Lejeune, I can pretty much guarantee you that the Marines will do something with them!

Like build a detention center. Send them back to their own country, maybe. If they can do that in Iraq, believe me, they can do that here!