Close Enough
By David Alire Garcia



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Police policy on immigrant arrests nears completion.

Drug trafficking. Gang activity. Identity theft. These are a few of the crimes that would prompt city police to call federal immigration agents, under an almost-approved new city policy.

Police will soon have an official policy for dealing with criminal immigrant activity. Photo: Will Foley


Santa Fe Police Capt. Gary Johnson, the long-time police liaison to the city?s advisory Immigration Committee, tells SFR he expects final approval for the policy?which has been nine months in the making?in the next two weeks.

?If there?s no other input from city staff, the draft policy goes to the chief of police for his final signature,? Johnson says.

Achieving a consensus policy took longer than Johnson initially thought it would. In mid-July, he told SFR he believed the draft policy was almost completed [Cover story, July 18: ?Turf Talk?].

MᲩa Cristina L󰥺, co-founder of Santa Fe-based immigration rights group Somos Un Pueblo Unido, explains that the draft policy has had a long bureaucratic journey.

?The policy had to be reviewed by the city attorney before it went back to the police,? L󰥺, also chairwoman of the Immigration Committee, says. ?Then it comes back to the committee and then everybody is happy,? she adds. ?But it takes time.?

A current draft of the policy obtained by SFR includes specific guidelines for notifying US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents when police have arrested an undocumented immigrant. ICE ?may be notified in cases concealing identity, identity theft, a violent crime against another person, human trafficking, narcotics trafficking, gang activity, organized crime organizations and other felonious crimes,? according to the draft.

The five-point policy also requires that a police commander approve any such notification; existing policy only requires the approval of a shift supervisor. Commanders also must document their decisions to notify ICE in police reports.

The policy, which will be folded into the city?s Police Directives Manual and distributed to all officers, also cites the 1999 city resolution that forbids any city resources from being used for the ?sole purpose? of enforcing federal immigration law.

Mayor David Coss faults inaction on comprehensive immigration reform at the federal level for putting Santa Fe in a ?complicated situation.? He adds, ?We?re a local government and we?re dealing with a failed federal immigration policy.? But he also notes that the updated policy meets several big picture goals, including enhanced public safety as well as safeguarding civil and constitutional rights of immigrants living in Santa Fe.

ICE officials could not be reached for comment for this story.

Immigration Committee member Erik Mason, also a member of the day laborer support group Amigos del Parque, is quick to describe the policy as a compromise.

?We didn?t get everything we wanted in the policy, but [the police] went a lot further than they intended to go when we first started the negotiations,? he says. Mason adds that he would have preferred to require police commanders ?justify? any decision to forward names or information to ICE, and that police initially balked at detailing under what circumstances they would cooperate with ICE.

?They would have preferred something much more general,? he says. ?But those were minor points.?

Somos? L󰥺 also describes the draft policy as a compromise. ?It?s not perfect,? she says, ?but it?s the most perfect compromise that we can come up with.? She adds that the Immigration Committee will meet Oct. 9 to formally approve the draft policy.

Johnson, who says he plans to retire by the end of this year, doesn?t think the policy marks a major shift in police procedures, but he does think it offers a major clarification.

?There?s this perception that police departments across the state don?t want to touch immigration issues, even to the point that criminal aliens are getting away with crimes, and that?s not the case,? he says. ?We wanted to send a message that the only people who should fear the police are those involved with criminal enterprise.?

Johnson adds that requiring a shift commander to handle all dealings with ICE should prevent the ?communication breakdown? that occurred during the immigration raids conducted by ICE earlier this year, when the chief of police initially claimed that ICE had not notified the local police.

The mayor sees the new policy as proof of the city?s more sensible approach.

?Some people would like to pit people against each other,? Coss offers. ?But in Santa Fe we?d rather reach consensus and move forward together.?



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