La Palma Council Backs INS Deportation Project

An immigrant identification project proposed in Anaheim has won endorsement from La Palma’s City Council.

In a unanimous vote, the council this week passed a resolution endorsing a six-month federal Immigration and Naturalization Service pilot program. The project would station an INS officer at Anaheim City Jail to identify illegal immigrants and deport them.

“If the project is successful, it will provide a model for other cities to implement in effectively addressing the local impact of criminal illegal alien activity, which currently accounts for an average of 30% of criminal arrests in the Los Angeles and Orange County area,” City Clerk Brigitte Charles wrote in a memo to the council.

The council’s resolution states that “local law enforcement agencies are encountering an increasingly high incidence of suspected illegal aliens committing crimes.”

The resolution also states that many local governments run up big expenses for processing, detaining and prosecuting illegal immigrants.

Charles, in her memo to the council, said: “Since the local tracking system is limited, many of those arrested illegal aliens return, either under the same or an assumed name. Often police are repeatedly arresting the same perpetrator.”