by Ken Walker
Controversy Over Immigration Status Yields State-Wide Policy
August 23, 2007 in Uncategorized by Ken Walker
The ??New York Times?? reports today that immigration checks of criminal suspects are now a state-wide requirement in New Jersey: “Immigration Checks Ordered in New Jersey”:http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/23/nyregion/23immig.html. NJ attorney general Anne Milgram seems to have made a helpful, reasonable call here: we need a standardized way to deal with illegal immigrants who have been convicted of a crime.
The New Jersey attorney general, Anne Milgram, on Wednesday ordered local law enforcement agencies to inquire about the immigration status of criminal suspects and notify federal authorities whenever they believe someone arrested is in the country illegally.
The directive comes amid growing debate across the state over the role of local officials in immigration questions since the Aug. 4 schoolyard slayings of three friends in Newark. One of the prime suspects in the murders, Jose Lachira Carranza, is an illegal immigrant from Peru who was out on bail despite three prior felony arrests, in part because the authorities never checked his immigration status.
“There’s a need that was brought home to us all recently with the tragic events in Newark for a uniform state policy,” Ms. Milgram, the state’s top law enforcement officer, said at a news conference here, promising random compliance checks to ensure that local officials are following the policy, effective immediately.
A spokesman for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the federal agency, praised the new policy Wednesday, saying, “We welcome this newly expanded cooperation throughout the State of New Jersey.”
Ms. Milgram has talked often about helping local law enforcement officials deal with illegal immigrants in a manner that promotes public safety without treading on human rights. That has become more precarious for politicians since the shooting.
On the one hand, Mayor Cory A. Booker of Newark has repeatedly said that he opposes the notion of involving city police in immigration matters, and Paula T. Dow, the Essex County prosecutor — whose office was one of several that did not check Mr. Carranza’s immigration status — was even more pointed, saying her policy was to notify immigration officials only upon conviction.
On the other hand, a growing chorus of officials — including the State Senate president, Richard J. Codey, a Democrat, and Assemblyman Alex DeCroce, the Republican minority leader — have recently urged the state to adopt a tougher stance. And on Monday, Representative Tom Tancredo, a Republican from Colorado who is running for president on a conservative immigration platform, accused Newark officials of being complicit in the murders because of their lax approach.
Until now, local law enforcement agencies had broad discretion — and widely divergent practices — on whether to check immigration status or report suspicious candidates to federal authorities. The Hudson County prosecutor’s office, for example, already routinely does so; the West Orange Police Department, which had arrested Mr. Carranza for assault last fall, has no set procedures for contacting the immigration service.
The ??Star Ledger??’s ??Tom Moran?? provides some additional commentary in response to Bill O’Reilly’s accusing Mayor Booker of being “flat-out dishonest, and downright stupid” (wow): “Bill O’Reilly’s Newark rant”:http://blog.nj.com/njv_tom_moran/2007/08/conservative_talkshow_host_bil.html:
Still, Booker led with his chin on this issue. He’s been adamant about his feelings that police should look the other way on illegal immigration. That makes sense on the streets, since cops need everyone to report crime, act as informants, and testify at trial.
But once someone is arrested on a serious crime, why not check on their status? Councilman Ron Rice Jr. had proposed a resolution to require that of Newark police, and today, responding to the Newark murders, Attorney General Anne Milgram ordered all local police in the state to do so.
Booker called Milgram’s order reasonable. But he’s just playing nice. He told Star-Ledger reporter Jeff Mays last week that he didn’t like the idea, saying “We don’t want to have any undue burden. Our job is to arrest them and put them in the criminal justice system.” And his spokeswoman confirmed today that he still feels that way.
In response to the directive from AG Milgram, Booker issued a statement in press release, which found its way to my inbox:
Under this new directive, city law enforcement will inquire about a person’s residency status when charged with a serious crime. This edict is a balance. Local officers cannot inquire about the immigration status of crime victims, witnesses to crimes or persons requesting police assistance. That makes certain that the safety of Newark residents comes first and ensures that our most vulnerable residents are protected.
As to whether this would have prevented the schoolyard killings conducted by at least three illegal immigrants, though, this directive might not have helped: Newark police had notified federal officials to check Carranza’s status, but he was already freed on bail by the time federal authorities got back to the NPD.
Regardless of if it was a state wide policy to check or not check immigration status, why does the NJ AG have to issue an order requiring LEO’s (law enforcement agencies) to check it now?
The real question now is why are law enforcement agencies in NJ not 287G compliant?
Now, as being a former Bail Bondsman, I can say outright that I never issued a bond for anyone who was not a citizen, and never would.
Geraldo Rivera is right on one of his talking points. Why did the judge grant such a low bail? Child rape should be a no bail charge.
We need to do more than what is being done. I suggest that all across the country people should get new laws on the ballots which eliminate all bail for Illegal Immigrants. In addition to that, we need to make it that every law enforcement agency in the country become 287G compliant.
This isn’t a race issue, it is a legal issue.
Interesting take on the immigration issue in the Star Ledger pasted below:
How Newark can mend: First, forget about immigration status
by Ryan Haygood August 17, 2007 9:30AM
I have a confession to make.
I assumed that those responsible for the horrific murders of Terrence Aeriel, Dashon Harvey and Ofemi Hightower looked liked me.
That is, I assumed that they, like each of the victims, were black.
Indeed, a recent U.S. Department of Justice study confirmed that I was justified in my belief.
The study, released by the department’s Bureau of Statistics last week, showed that although blacks comprise only 13 percent of the U.S. population, they represented nearly half of the nation’s murder victims in 2005. The study’s most startling finding, though, was that most of the black murder victims – an astonishing 93 percent – were killed by other black people.
In other words, more than 9 out of every 10 black murder victims die at the hands of another black person.
I assumed, incorrectly, that the same was true here. And I was not alone.
It turns out, however, that those charged with the murders of the three young friends are not black folks. They are Latinos, a few of whom are in New Jersey illegally.
To be sure, many of Newark’s racially diverse residents have been drawn together after the shocking murders.
Others have sought, with some increasing frequency, to make an issue of the perpetratrors’ immigration status (and the immigration issue more broadly), arguing that we should “send illegals back” to their home countries.
The statistic above clearly demonstrates that mass deportation of illegal immigrants would have no impact on the rate at which blacks are murdered in communities like Newark.
More fundamentally, the plight of immigrants mirrors the struggles faced by blacks not that long ago.
Consider this scenario:
In the years between 1915 and 1970, 7 million migrants crossed Southern borders bound for economic opportunities in Northern cities like Newark, Baltimore, Detroit, Chicago and New York. A great number of them had little, if any, formal education. They were unskilled but were very willing to work.
Enticed by industries that promised gainful employment, those migrants worked for less money than the existing labor force, building resentment amid claims that these migrants were stealing jobs and driving down wages.
This is the story, not of the illegal immigrants who are at the center of the current debate, but that of the millions of blacks who left the American South following the abolition of slavery.
Black people are this country’s first and only involuntary illegal immigrants. We were kidnapped from the African coast and dragged to the American shores for decades after the “legal” slave trade ended in 1808.
In the cloud of historical amnesia, and faced with this horrific tragedy, some of us overlook the fact that the debate surrounding immigration today echoes the issues that confronted blacks in the recent past.
The lessons taught by black history provide the strongest argument for rejecting forces that seek to weaken all of us by dividing us.
And division is precisely what focusing on the irrelevant immigration status of perpetrators creates.
In the wake of the tragic murders of three of Newark’s promising young people, we must, more than ever, bond together and rebuild our city.
And we must do that together.
My dear Newarkers, the problem with the illegal immigration status is going to get worse.As an immigrant myself and an investigator I offer a simple solution.
First of all, illegal immigrants, don’t pay taxes to our society because they can not have a social security card.
Second, many of them have different names and fake passaports. Therefore, fake names to obtaining illegal driving licenses and be able to drive is on the rise nationwide.
Third, by getting in USA soil illegally our Government does not have the ability to know their background.
Forth, the potential and likelyhood of terrorist to infiltrate in our society and to cause us more harm than good is greater than before.
What can you do about that? My solution is simple.
1) Lets get our legislators and Governor, as well as our mayors, to pass a legislation that everyone must have a some form of identification, preferable issued by the Motor Vehicle Department.
2) Allow the illegal immigrants to obtain their driving privileges as long they have a passaport to identify their data. Since our motor vehicle data is accessable to all police officers it is easy to identify who is who.
We Americans should learned with other countries, especially in Europe, how they control their population.
For instances, in Germany everybody must have a Germany ID, if you are a German national, or you must carried your passaport, if you not a German national. The fines are very high and stiff on any violation of the law. Therefore, the people does not want to pay for such high fines impune by the court. People in Germany are very honest and follow the rules.
We must think outside of the box. Some times you must travel to other countries to feel the differnce. I am sure our legislators can do better if they think outside of the box, otherwise we will countinue the soap-opera in a different chapter.
The problem with Carranza is that he shouldn’t have been free on bail whether he was an illegal immigrant or not.