Orange Should End Sweeps

The city of Orange, which for weeks has been harassing undocumented workers with a selective law enforcement policy that singles them out for deportation, is now saying it needs to ease the tensions that its crackdowns have created.

Except for one thing, that realization could be taken as an encouraging sign that the city sees its misguided enforcement policy as a failure. Mayor Jess Perez’s proposal for improving relations among undocumented workers, police and residents is to create a task force. Worse, it is a task force without a single undocumented worker among its members.

Furthermore, while Perez is promoting the task force to solve what he calls a “public relations problem” caused in part by the workers’ distrust of the city, police will still be singling out day workers for the most minor violations, and possible deportation. Workers are stopped for such minor infractions as dirty license plates and sitting in parked cars without seat belts fastened. If they cannot prove legal residency, they are turned over to federal immigration officials for deportation.

And now police have added a new approach. They are staking out employers who pick up day workers, following them to their jobs and then calling in state inspectors who cite the employers for violating state labor laws.

Orange does have a problem to the extent that some day workers who gather on the street seeking jobs have reportedly broken some laws by trespassing and stealing. If and when they do commit a violation, however, police should proceed against them as they would against any other suspected lawbreaker. There is no reason to roust all the other workers, too.

The obvious answer to better relations is not a task force created, it seems, primarily to placate critics. More effective, and fair, would be an end to the selective enforcement policy aimed at the undocumented workers.

The Orange County Human Relations Commission has called for a moratorium on that program. And last week Rusty Kennedy, the commission’s executive director, reminded the city that the tension it seeks to reduce is a result of its police approach. He urged the council to “go on record” opposing the “discriminatory” enforcement policy.

The City Council and police chief ought to heed Kennedy’s advice. The problem now goes beyond rousting day workers. As Kennedy noted, people who fear the police will not report crimes or appear as witnesses in serious crimes. That affects the entire community.

If city officials and police in Orange truly want to improve community relations and build bridges of trust and respect, they must be even-handed in their local law enforcement efforts and stop acting like federal border patrol agents.