Beating Raises Concerns About Policing

The beating of two Mexican nationals by Riverside County sheriff’s deputies last week is giving fresh ammunition to foes of congressional proposals to let local law enforcement officers become more involved in immigration cases.

“Congress is callously seeking to hand over U.S. Border Patrol responsibilities to the local police, while we are seeing firsthand the problems with using untrained local law enforcement officials to do the job of the federal government,” said Gregory T. Nojeim, legislative counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union.

As it is now, the relationship between police officers and Immigration and Naturalization Service agents is a hazy one, varying from jurisdiction to jurisdiction.

The Los Angeles Police Department, for instance, has an internal policy barring officers from conducting investigations solely to determine immigration status. But the department’s Special Order 40 allows for some situations in which police contact immigration authorities to pursue criminal investigations.

During the 1992 Los Angeles riots, the LAPD turned over scores of foreign-born suspects to immigration authorities. The move was severely criticized by some community leaders, who said that such action discourages immigrants from cooperating with police in the solving of crimes.

Officially, state and local law enforcement officials are not authorized to enforce immigration laws. But local police are allowed to accompany the INS on patrols of the U.S.-Mexican border. They focus their attention on violations of state and local law and sometimes assist federal officials in transporting undocumented criminals.

House and Senate bills would make it easier for local police to aid the understaffed INS.

The House legislation, approved last month and sent to the Senate, gives state and local law enforcement agencies the authority to seek and apprehend illegal immigrants who are violating a deportation order.

Rep. Tom Latham (R-Iowa) introduced the measure after a teenage boy was murdered in the state by suspected illegal immigrants. One of the men had been through deportation proceedings but was still on the streets.

“Local law enforcement agencies are understandably frustrated by this problem because there is legally nothing that a state or local law enforcement agency can do about a violation of immigration other than calling the local INS officer to report the case,” Latham said.

The Senate bill, sponsored by Sen. Alan K. Simpson (R-Wyo.) and scheduled for consideration next week, empowers the U.S. attorney general to deputize local law enforcement officials to enforce any provision of the Immigration and Naturalization Act.

*

The attorney general could act when “an actual or imminent mass influx of aliens arriving off the coast of the United States presents urgent circumstances requiring an immediate federal response,” the bill says.

INS officers now have wide powers not given to local police. For instance, they can interrogate any person “believed to be an alien,” can board ships in U.S. waters to search for illegal immigrants and can patrol private lands within 25 miles of the border to search for undocumented people.

While supporting aspects of both bills, the Clinton administration has yet to endorse either.

Critics complain that the measures would give local police powers without providing adequate training in immigration law, Spanish or other needed skills.

The videotaped beating in the Los Angeles city of South El Monte involving the two Riverside County sheriff’s deputies was repeatedly broadcast across the world and is likely to be raised during the Senate debate.

*

Some lawmakers say the incident is irrelevant to the bills but is being manipulated for political ends. The deputies were called in by the Border Patrol, which has banned high-speed chases of immigrants since a 1992 pursuit ended in a deadly crash near a Temecula school. Local law enforcement officials are allowed to enforce violations of the law, including speeding.

“Groups with a political agenda are exploiting an incident that has no explicit connection to immigration,” said Dan Stein, executive director of the Federation for American Immigration Reform. “The wall that has been erected between INS and local and state police has been the single most serious impediment to endorsing our immigration laws.”

But immigrant advocates see a relationship between the Riverside County case and INS-police cooperation that Stein and others seek to foster.

“Police need to be trained to differentiate someone crossing the border from someone fleeing an armed robbery,” said Georgina Verdugo, regional counsel with the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund.