Lev Kobrin
02-27-2009, 12:20 PM
Study criticizes police immigrant plan
Los Angeles Times / February 27, 2009
LOS ANGELES - A federal program that empowers local police to enforce US immigration laws has failed in its promise to target illegal immigrants who pose a threat to public safety or national security, according to a study released yesterday.
Instead of focusing on serious criminals, law enforcement officers are arresting "day laborers, street vendors, people who are driving around with broken tail lights," said Judith Greene, coauthor of the study by Justice Strategies, a New York-based nonprofit research group focusing on humane, cost-effective approaches to justice and immigration law enforcement.
The costly enforcement program is diverting resources from local police and sheriff departments, the authors reported. Many of the agreements are in cities where the crime rates are lower than the national average but growth in the Hispanic population is higher than the national average, they said.
There were more than 65 agreements between federal immigration officials and local law enforcement agencies across the nation and more than 950 officers had been trained by federal authorities as of late 2008, according to US Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
On the agency's website, the program is described as "one of the agency's most successful and popular partnership initiatives as more state and local leaders have come to understand how a shared approach to immigration enforcement can benefit their communities."
Locally, immigration authorities have partnerships with the Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, and San Bernardino sheriff's departments.
© Copyright 2009 Globe Newspaper Company.
Los Angeles Times / February 27, 2009
LOS ANGELES - A federal program that empowers local police to enforce US immigration laws has failed in its promise to target illegal immigrants who pose a threat to public safety or national security, according to a study released yesterday.
Instead of focusing on serious criminals, law enforcement officers are arresting "day laborers, street vendors, people who are driving around with broken tail lights," said Judith Greene, coauthor of the study by Justice Strategies, a New York-based nonprofit research group focusing on humane, cost-effective approaches to justice and immigration law enforcement.
The costly enforcement program is diverting resources from local police and sheriff departments, the authors reported. Many of the agreements are in cities where the crime rates are lower than the national average but growth in the Hispanic population is higher than the national average, they said.
There were more than 65 agreements between federal immigration officials and local law enforcement agencies across the nation and more than 950 officers had been trained by federal authorities as of late 2008, according to US Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
On the agency's website, the program is described as "one of the agency's most successful and popular partnership initiatives as more state and local leaders have come to understand how a shared approach to immigration enforcement can benefit their communities."
Locally, immigration authorities have partnerships with the Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, and San Bernardino sheriff's departments.
© Copyright 2009 Globe Newspaper Company.