Police will be urged to join immigration enforcement
By Brandi Grissom / Austin Bureau
Article Launched: 12/01/2007 12:00:00 AM MST


AUSTIN -- During the next year, lawmakers will look for ways to encourage local police to become authorized immigration enforcement agents.
House Speaker Tom Craddick on Friday finished publishing a list of issues he wants legislators to study before the 2009 legislative session. Among several border security and immigration issues to be studied is a federal program referred to as 287g.

Under that program, local departments sign an agreement with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement that allows officers to receive training and become authorized to enforce federal immigration laws.

The charge from Craddick calls on the House State Affairs Committee to "make recommendations to encourage" local governments to sign the agreements.

During the legislative session this year, lawmakers hotly debated border security and immigration measures, though few were passed.

State Rep. David Swinford, chairman of the State Affairs Committee, led many of the immigration discussions this year.

Swinford, a Republican from Dumas, said he didn't plan to promote 287g agreements. Local governments, he said, should decide whether they want to take on the immigration issue.

But he said he wanted to ensure that officers get appropriate training before they try to enforce federal immigration laws.

Some local police and city leaders, he said, have been enforcing immigration laws without the training or authority to do so.

"We have a lot of cities that are doing really stupid stuff out there," Swinford said.

Carl Rusnok, ICE spokesman, said local officers do not have authority to enforce federal immigration laws unless they first receive training.

Currently, he said, no Texas agencies have signed 287g agreements with ICE. Nationwide, 34 local agencies have fewer than 600 officers trained to enforce immigration laws, Rusnok said.

El Paso Police Chief Richard Wiles said having local officers enforce immigration laws is a bad idea for several reasons.

"It's a federal responsibility," Wiles said. "It's their job. We don't have the resources to do it, and the taxpayers of El Paso should not have to pay to have their police department doing the federal government's job."

http://www.elpasotimes.com/news/ci_7603895