Obama: State and Local Police Should Stop Immigration Enforcement


“The U.S. Department of Homeland Security should terminate the use of the state and local criminal justice system, including through detention, notification, and transfer requests, to enforce civil immigration laws against civil and nonserious criminal offenders,” the report reads, which is comes from a policing task force set up after the Ferguson riots last year.

Obama’s cutting back on the flow of military weapons and equipment is nothing but a superfluous gesture that does nothing but assume more power over state and local law enforcement agencies. Local police have already been inundated with weapons of war, and he’s not asking them to give it all back…even though agencies have tried unsuccessfully! Once we see race riots happen over the country this summer, it’s probable that he will quietly lift his little ban.

Task force officials also suggested that the government pay for any enforcement it asks of local authorities.

The report angered proponents of an immigration crackdown, who said it was the latest effort by Mr. Obama and his aides to stop finding illegal immigrants to deport.

“If you’re so worried about your legal status, or your illegal status, don’t put yourself in a place or a situation where you’re going to get picked up by the police,” said Rosemary Jenks, government relations manager at NumbersUSA, which lobbies for stricter immigration limits.

She questioned the sense of ignoring illegal immigrants driving without a license or using falsified documents. “Somehow in this world if you’re an illegal alien, then you can’t be punished for being an illegal alien,” she said.

Homeland Security officials already were struggling with those questions under orders from Mr. Obama, who as part of his expanded deportation amnesty announced in November said U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which handles interior enforcement and deportations, needs to change its relationship with state and local police.

As part of those changes, ICE scrapped its Secure Communities program, which trolled prisons and jails looking for illegal immigrants to be deported, but which angered dozens of police departments that said they worried they were being asked to hold people for pickup, making them complicit in enforcement.

ICE is replacing Secure Communities with what it calls the Priority Enforcement Program, which will continue to scour prisons and jails but will assert probable cause, according to draft documents obtained by advocacy groups.

ICE said it couldn’t comment on where the Priority Enforcement Program stands because of an ongoing lawsuit and referred questions about the task force’s recommendations to the White House.

Mr. Obama traveled to New Jersey to discuss the report, though he focused chiefly on the military equipment that local police used to confront protesters in Ferguson last year, sparking a national debate over whether there was a growing divide between officers and their communities.

The report said police need to take steps to rebuild trust, including acknowledging past abuses, becoming more transparent, hiring racial and cultural minorities and polling to determine whether they have built solid relationships with their communities.

Source: washingtontimes.com
Photo: thelibertyeagle.com


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