Originally Posted by
UNM1136
Gotta disagree. State and local level officers certainly have enough to do without doing immigration enforcement. But what, at our level, does immigration enforcement consist of? A phone call? A fax or email of a report? An office at the jail? We don't hook them up for immigration status, in my border town LE experience. We hook them up for criminal offenses, and just make a quick referral if their status is not clear. Even then it is the start of a long, painful process.
Let the feds do the legwork, maybe just point them in the right direction. Let the feds investigate and take jurisdiction, putting the feds on the hook for the costs. As you point out it is the feds refusing to take action that is the issue. This is a topic regularly discussed where I work, and we are only concerned with arresting those in violation of local and state laws. Immigration status is secondary, and not our ball of wax, but what cop (or federal agent) doesn't appreciate a phone call or a copy of a report that show that this prisoner may be something different? What cop doesn't appreciate a tip in their AOR to a potential problem?
If an offender can be identified, even as a serial misdemeanant, and a phone call or email can get the correct enforcers involved, and that offender gets deported by the feds, how does that not help the community? How is that not good policing, in the community oriented policing sense?
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