When Police Enforce Immigration Laws
For more information or to volunteer for OCA-Greater Seattle’s civil rights committee, email OCA-Greater Seattle
By Richard Bergeon
In the NY Times, July 13, 2005, article entitled “Town Uses Trespass Law to Fight Illegal Immigrants”, writer Pam Belluck tells the story of 21-year-old Jorge Mora Ramírez who stopped his car on the side of a road in the New Hampshire town of New Ipswich to make a cellphone call.
A police officer approached him. After the officer induced Mr. Ramírez to admit that he was in the country illegally, the New Ipswich police tried to get federal immigration authorities to arrest him. Immigration, however, did not consider that a priority given their scarce resources. So the police acted on their own charging Mr. Ramírez with “criminal trespassing,” and held him overnight to, as the chief of police said, “. . . discourage illegal aliens from coming to or passing through my community."
While some might applaud the notion of the police pro-actively enforcing immigration laws, there is at the heart of the matter, a troubling problem. That is “racial profiling”, which is clearly illegal. Which people are being stopped? Are they people who are heard to speak a foreign language? People who speak English with an accent? People who don't look like they are European Americans?
Self-appointed guardians have no training in immigration law. They are not obligated to provide qualified interpreters to participate in the questioning. It is not unknown for legal immigrants to make answers that could lead them to be jailed. People with poor language skills are susceptible to misinterpreting what is asked when confronted with police authority. Some simply respond incorrectly just because they cannot remember the words they want to use.
Federal authorities are now providing immigration law training. However, that training cannot irradicate profiling.
In 2007 in Prince William County, Md., the county's leaders are seeking to implement the nation's most restrictive ordinances. One of two things they would do is require the police to coordinate closely with federal authorities and conduct residency checks - even in the case of minor infractions. The policy leaves it up to the police to determine who "looks" illegal. Since 20 percent of the population is Latino and most are citizens of the U.S. or in the country illegally, what has to occur is racial profiling.
Assessing the quality of proof of citizenship is also a difficult process. Police are not equipped to assess the authenticity of driver licenses, state ID cards, Social Security Cards, Immigration ID cards, etc. Social Security cards pose a special problem as forgeries are rampant, names often similar, and it is estimated that the error rate in Social Security record keeping is high.
Identity problems are already becoming a problem. A Latino women was roused from her bed in a recent raid and her family held at gun-point while questionned about their nationality. The problem? A neighbor had indicated a large number of people in the home. The woman was a U.S. citizen as were all the membersof the family. In California, a family was alarmed to find a mentally deficient son had been deported when his questionning had led authorities to believe he was illegally in the country. The young man was found nearly a week later after wondering the streets of Tijuana alone. A young Latina was stopped for a traffic violation and carted off to the police station because she did not have "adequate" proof of being legally in the country she was born in.
© 2005 - 2007 OCA-Greater Seattle
OCA - GREATER SEATTLE CHAPTER