Agency Shifts on Immigration Law
Orange County sheriff's deputies will be trained to enforce federal law in some cases. L.A. County's sheriff says he'll act to do the same.
By Richard Winton and Andrew Blankstein
Times Staff Writers
April 1, 2005
Orange County Sheriff's Department officials said Thursday they planned to train as many as 500 deputies to enforce federal immigration laws, becoming the latest Southern California police agency to become more actively involved in immigration issues.
The move comes as police departments in Los Angeles and elsewhere have begun tinkering with the strict barrier between officers and immigration officials.
The Los Angeles Police Department and a number of other big-city police agencies for years have prohibited officers from seeking residency information from crime victims and witnesses. The policies have been aimed at making illegal immigrants more willing to cooperate with authorities.
Now those policies have begun to bend.
Several factors appear to be involved. Since the Sept. 11 attacks, some politicians and academics have questioned whether "sanctuary rules" limiting cooperation between police and immigration officials have unnecessarily tied the hands of law enforcement and impeded anti-terrorism efforts.
Local police departments also have been concerned about the rise of international street gangs such as Mara Salvatrucha, whose members cross state and international borders.
In Orange County, Sheriff Mike Carona is scheduled to announce a plan next month under which selected deputies would receive training from the U.S. Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the successor to the INS.
The training would allow deputies to enforce federal immigration laws when they were involved in special investigations focusing on targets including sexual predators and gang members. The deputies wouldn't randomly patrol for illegal immigrants, officials said, but they could use their new powers in larger criminal investigations.
"We don't want to enforce immigration laws," said Orange County sheriff's spokesman Jon Fleishman, adding that Carona plans to meet with community groups about the plan. "Our goal is to empower specialized units in this department to make arrests."
Orange County's effort comes as the LAPD works on a clarification of its sanctuary rule, known as Special Order 40, which was adopted in 1979 under then-Chief Daryl F. Gates. The new guidelines would allow officers to arrest illegal immigrants who have been deported after criminal convictions but then reenter the United States.
Under the proposed rules, which still must be approved by the Police Commission, LAPD officers who encounter such people would call their supervisors, who would contact federal immigration officials. If a suspect was once convicted of a serious crime and deported, officers could seek a federal warrant and then make the arrest.
Police Chief William J. Bratton on Thursday attempted to quell concerns from some immigrant rights groups who said the change could make illegal immigrants fearful of cooperating with police.
The people the policy is designed to target are those who victimize immigrants, he said.
"You certainly don't want that person back into the immigrant population, once again preying on that population," he said.
Right now, Bratton said, officers are confused about what to do when they see a suspect on the streets of Los Angeles whom they believe had been deported.
The two candidates running for mayor — incumbent James K. Hahn and City Councilman Antonio Villaraigosa — expressed caution about the LAPD plan but said they would need to review the idea before taking a firm position.
But Bratton's efforts won the enthusiastic endorsement of Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca, who said Thursday he would give his deputies the same powers.
"The message is, if you are a convicted criminal and you are deported, you are not welcome back here," Baca said. "It's a federal law violation to reenter the United States, and I will order my people to arrest you if you do that."
Just as Los Angeles' order in 1979 led other cities to adopt similar policies, the rethinking here is echoed elsewhere.
In Miami, for example, Police Chief John Timoney said his department now has some exceptions to its sanctuary rules. In an effort to combat such multinational gangs as Mara Salvatrucha, the department has joined with federal immigration officials to share intelligence on criminal cases in the last nine months.
"These are not the traditional gangs; they are entirely different," Timoney said. "We've joined forces with the feds in the past: the DEA with drugs and FBI with terrorism. This is the next step."
The Miami-federal immigration partnership led to the recent arrests of a dozen gang members, including two suspects with murder warrants from Los Angeles, Timoney said.
Other departments, however, are keeping their policies in place. In New York, officials talked in 2003 about easing the longtime ban on police officers — as well as social-service workers and other city officials — inquiring about the immigration status of residents. After an outcry from immigrant rights groups, the city decided to keep the ban.
And Chicago police continue to have firm rules prohibiting officers from asking suspects about their immigration status — either in the booking process or on the street.
"We deal with the offense at hand," said Chicago Police Department spokesman Sgt. Robert Cargie.
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/orange/la-me-order1apr01.story
Orange County sheriff's deputies will be trained to enforce federal law in some cases. L.A. County's sheriff says he'll act to do the same.
By Richard Winton and Andrew Blankstein
Times Staff Writers
April 1, 2005
Orange County Sheriff's Department officials said Thursday they planned to train as many as 500 deputies to enforce federal immigration laws, becoming the latest Southern California police agency to become more actively involved in immigration issues.
The move comes as police departments in Los Angeles and elsewhere have begun tinkering with the strict barrier between officers and immigration officials.
The Los Angeles Police Department and a number of other big-city police agencies for years have prohibited officers from seeking residency information from crime victims and witnesses. The policies have been aimed at making illegal immigrants more willing to cooperate with authorities.
Now those policies have begun to bend.
Several factors appear to be involved. Since the Sept. 11 attacks, some politicians and academics have questioned whether "sanctuary rules" limiting cooperation between police and immigration officials have unnecessarily tied the hands of law enforcement and impeded anti-terrorism efforts.
Local police departments also have been concerned about the rise of international street gangs such as Mara Salvatrucha, whose members cross state and international borders.
In Orange County, Sheriff Mike Carona is scheduled to announce a plan next month under which selected deputies would receive training from the U.S. Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the successor to the INS.
The training would allow deputies to enforce federal immigration laws when they were involved in special investigations focusing on targets including sexual predators and gang members. The deputies wouldn't randomly patrol for illegal immigrants, officials said, but they could use their new powers in larger criminal investigations.
"We don't want to enforce immigration laws," said Orange County sheriff's spokesman Jon Fleishman, adding that Carona plans to meet with community groups about the plan. "Our goal is to empower specialized units in this department to make arrests."
Orange County's effort comes as the LAPD works on a clarification of its sanctuary rule, known as Special Order 40, which was adopted in 1979 under then-Chief Daryl F. Gates. The new guidelines would allow officers to arrest illegal immigrants who have been deported after criminal convictions but then reenter the United States.
Under the proposed rules, which still must be approved by the Police Commission, LAPD officers who encounter such people would call their supervisors, who would contact federal immigration officials. If a suspect was once convicted of a serious crime and deported, officers could seek a federal warrant and then make the arrest.
Police Chief William J. Bratton on Thursday attempted to quell concerns from some immigrant rights groups who said the change could make illegal immigrants fearful of cooperating with police.
The people the policy is designed to target are those who victimize immigrants, he said.
"You certainly don't want that person back into the immigrant population, once again preying on that population," he said.
Right now, Bratton said, officers are confused about what to do when they see a suspect on the streets of Los Angeles whom they believe had been deported.
The two candidates running for mayor — incumbent James K. Hahn and City Councilman Antonio Villaraigosa — expressed caution about the LAPD plan but said they would need to review the idea before taking a firm position.
But Bratton's efforts won the enthusiastic endorsement of Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca, who said Thursday he would give his deputies the same powers.
"The message is, if you are a convicted criminal and you are deported, you are not welcome back here," Baca said. "It's a federal law violation to reenter the United States, and I will order my people to arrest you if you do that."
Just as Los Angeles' order in 1979 led other cities to adopt similar policies, the rethinking here is echoed elsewhere.
In Miami, for example, Police Chief John Timoney said his department now has some exceptions to its sanctuary rules. In an effort to combat such multinational gangs as Mara Salvatrucha, the department has joined with federal immigration officials to share intelligence on criminal cases in the last nine months.
"These are not the traditional gangs; they are entirely different," Timoney said. "We've joined forces with the feds in the past: the DEA with drugs and FBI with terrorism. This is the next step."
The Miami-federal immigration partnership led to the recent arrests of a dozen gang members, including two suspects with murder warrants from Los Angeles, Timoney said.
Other departments, however, are keeping their policies in place. In New York, officials talked in 2003 about easing the longtime ban on police officers — as well as social-service workers and other city officials — inquiring about the immigration status of residents. After an outcry from immigrant rights groups, the city decided to keep the ban.
And Chicago police continue to have firm rules prohibiting officers from asking suspects about their immigration status — either in the booking process or on the street.
"We deal with the offense at hand," said Chicago Police Department spokesman Sgt. Robert Cargie.
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/orange/la-me-order1apr01.story