America's Voice Blog

Posted 05/26/10 at 03:18pm By Marjorie Valbrun

Police Chiefs Oppose Arizona Law,  Meet with Attorney General Eric Holder

Ten police chiefs from cities across the country, including three from Arizona, traveled to Washington, DC today to meet with Attorney General Eric Holder and reiterate what they’ve been saying for weeks: Arizona’s new immigration enforcement law will make their jobs harder, erode working relationships built on mutual trust and cooperation between law enforcement and immigrants, and  make communities less safe. The federal government should step in to prevent more states from following suit.

Watch a clip from the AP:

The chiefs, representing cities and counties with large immigrant populations from Phoenix to Philadelphia, should know. Between them they have more than 100 years of policing experience and they know what works and what doesn’t work.  What doesn’t work, they say, is state legislatures imposing new mandates on already stretched police departments requiring local officers to do the federal government's job by going after illegal immigrants.

That message came through loud and clear during a news conference the chiefs held today. One after another they spoke of the challenges immigration enforcement laws such as Arizona’s present to police departments, including three police departments in Arizona  – Phoenix, Tucson and Sahuarita  – that are most likely to feel the effects first if the law goes into effect, as expected, on July 29.  

“The primary job of local law enforcement is not immigration enforcement,” said Charlie Beck, Los Angeles’ police chief.  “It is to protect the community from crime. The Arizona legislation does not do this. We now very well how to do our job and legislation like this inhibits us from doing our job.”

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Posted 05/04/10 at 03:39pm By Dara Lind

More Cops Reject Controversial Arizona Immigration Law, SB 1070

From local Arizona cops to top police chiefs, with expertise in community policing, law enforcement is taking a firm stand against Arizona's controversial new immigration law, SB 1070.

Over the weekend, Chief Art Acevedo of Austin, TX wrote an op-ed in the Austin American-Statesman warning that Governor Jan Brewer and the Arizona legislators who signed the law "declared open season for criminals to target immigrants" and "killed community policing in the state." Chief Acevedo says Arizona's own history with crime shows why the new law is dangerous:

“During his tenure as chief of police in Mesa, George Gascon, now the chief in San Francisco, focused the efforts of his police officers on the reduction of crime through the COMPSTAT process — the use of historical and real-time crime data to deploy resources and fight crime — and resisted calls to have his officers engage in immigration enforcement. On the other end of the spectrum, Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio ordered his deputies to aggressively conduct immigration enforcement operations. Arpaio publicly chided Gascon for refusing to adopt his approach. Results of these divergent approaches speak for themselves: During the same three-year period, Mesa residents experienced a 30 percent reduction in crime and Maricopa County residents were subjected to a marked increase in crime, especially violent crime.”

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Posted 05/03/10 at 02:01pm By Dara Lind

Police Chiefs Speak Out Against Arizona Immigration Law, SB1070

Arizona has taken center stage in the debate about how to fix our badly broken immigration system. What people may not realize is that police associations and top cops around the country and across the state oppose the new law. In fact, the first lawsuit against SB1070 was filed last week by a 15-year veteran of the Tucson police force. Here’s a roundup of why police oppose the law and how it will affect their efforts to keep all Americans safe.

Arizona Association of Chiefs of Police

“The provisions of the bill remain problematic and will negatively affect the ability of law enforcement agencies across the state to fulfill their many responsibilities in a timely manner. While AACOP recognizes immigration as a significant issue in Arizona, we remain strong in our belief that it is an issue most appropriately addressed at the federal level.”
(“AACOP Statement on Senate Bill 1070”, April 21, 2010)
 
Sheriff Clarence Dupnik, Pima County, AZ
“[I have] no intention of complying. I think the law is one of the worst pieces of legislation I’ve seen in 50 years. [It’s] racist, disgusting and unnecessary…[There will be racial profiling.] If I tell my people to go out and look for A, B, and C, they're going to do it. They'll find some flimsy excuse like a tail light that's not working as a basis for a stop, which is a bunch of baloney. “
("The Dupnik rebellion: Pima’s top cop says ‘no’ to SB 1070," KGUN-TV, April 27, 2010)

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Posted 04/26/10 at 03:46pm By Mahwish Khan

Mayors Bloomberg and Gordon Condemn Arizona Bill—Plus, New York Will Welcome AZ’s Business!

Phoenix Mayor, Phil Gordon, and Mayor of New York City, Michael Bloomberg, are condemning Arizona Governor Jan Brewer’s move on Friday to sign the controversial SB 1070 into law.

Gordon’s primary focus is on the adverse implications this bill will have on community safety. By diverting police attention from dangerous criminals to harmless undocumented immigrants, this bill has the alarming ability to alienate a population that would otherwise be helpful in reporting and reducing real crime. Watch his interview on Fox News:

 

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Posted 02/26/10 at 12:40pm By Dara Lind

Police to Congress: We Can’t Clean Up Your Mess. “Step Up” and Pass Immigration Reform

When the federal government doesn't act on immigration, local communities feel the pain. Cops, in particular, have come forward to acknowledge that the strain of the broken system is making it harder for them to do their crucial jobs -- to fight crime, day in and day out.

So it makes sense that, this week, police chiefs across the country have been sending Congress a simple message (though they're too polite to put it this way): grow up, take some responsibility, and pass immigration reform that makes all of us safer.

That was the prevailing sentiment from Chief Lisa Womack of Elgin, IL; Sheriff Richard Wiles of El Paso, TX; and Chief Sam Granato of Yakima, WA, when they participated in a telephonic press conference yesterday sponsored by the Law Enforcement Engagement Initiative (LEEI). They called on President Obama and Congress to (in Chief Granato's words) "step up to the plate" on reform. Meanwhile, Lake County Sheriff Mark Curran told the Chicago Tribune that he supports comprehensive immigration reform, calling it "morally the right thing to do." The Tribune writes:

Curran argued that legalization would make it easier for potential witnesses to come forward during police investigations. "They're going to be patriotic Americans," he said.

Undocumented residents' reluctance to notify police when they are witnesses or victims of crime has been a constant frustration of the law enforcement community as they call on Congress to clean up its mess, and it was a theme of yesterday's LEEI call as well.

"What we see is people afraid to step out of the shadows to report a crime or be a witness," Chief Granato said, as reported in the Yakima Herald Republic.

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Posted 01/14/10 at 04:12pm By Marjorie Valbrun

A Maribel Hastings Exclusive: The Key Players in Immigration Reform

The immigration reform movement is more sophisticated than ever, encompassing a greater diversity of support among various sectors of American society.  As the immigration debate heats up this year, America’s Voice today releases a special report, “Immigration Reform: Know the Players,” providing an indispensable reference for anyone following the issue of immigration reform.

The series, which was originally published in Spanish on MaribelHastings.com in eight thematic installments, provides background information, statistics, and other detailed information on the roles played in the urgent battle for reform by the following groups of supporters: law enforcement; undocumented students; anti-immigrant groups; the pro-immigrant movement; faith communities; farmers and agricultural laborers; business and labor interests; and, of course, the main actors: the White House, Senate and House of Representatives.

Click here to download a copy of the series “Immigration Reform: Know the Players,” or listen to the audio actuality here.

Posted 11/06/09 at 12:00pm By Maribel Hastings

Immigration Reform: Know the Players

When people talk in the abstract about undocumented immigrants - or, as some call them disdainfully, "illegals" - they don't think about the fact that these "invisible people" are in fact present every minute of every day. The food we bring to our mouths has been picked or processed by their hands. They serve or cook our meals in restaurants, take care of our children, clean the offices where we work, or own businesses we patronize. They are our neighbors, friends, relatives…the list goes on.

Only in the world of Sheriff Joe Arpaio can you tell if someone is undocumented just by looking at him. The reality is that we're all mixed together. I don't like it when we talk about immigration reform "bringing people out of the shadows" because it makes them seem like criminals. They're not in the shadows, they're in plain sight--even though some people don't want to see them or recognize their existence, and even though they have to live plagued by uncertainty from one day to the next.

Over and over again, we've been told that immigration reform is coming, and it's beginning to seem like crying wolf. But our job now is to maintain the pressure on Washington to do something.

Check out the rest of the introduction--and the first entry in the series, "With Law Enforcement on Our Side"--at MaribelHastings.com.

Posted 10/27/09 at 01:09pm By Jackie Mahendra

LAPD Police Chief on Immigration: Fight Crime, Protect Communities

Yesterday, in “Warning: Talking Sanely about Immigration May Be Hazardous,” we reported on Sacramento’s Police Chief Rick Braziel, and his measured, rational approach to immigration and community policing.

Today, we are happy to highlight another key voice on this issue. Outgoing LAPD Police Chief William J. Bratton is a member of the rapidly-growing network of police chiefs across the nation calling for a serious immigration overhaul. According to his LAPD bio, Chief Bratton oversaw a historic drop in crime during his six years in office:

… After six years in office, crime in LA has been reduced to historically low levels, with Part I crimes down 33% and homicides down 41%.

The only person ever to serve as chief executive of the LAPD and the NYPD, Chief Bratton established an international reputation for re-engineering police departments and fighting crime in the 1990s.

As he prepared to depart from distinguished service, Bratton laid out a strong immigration position in an op-ed in today’s LA Times, drawing on his 40 years of law enforcement experience:

On March 12, Juan Garcia, a 53-year-old homeless man, was brutally murdered in an alley off 9th and Alvarado streets in the Westlake District, just west of downtown Los Angeles. At first, the police were stumped; there were no known witnesses and few clues. Then a 43-year-old undocumented immigrant who witnessed the crime came forward and told the homicide detectives from the Rampart station what he saw. Because of his help, a suspect was identified and arrested a few days later while hiding on skid row. Because the witness was not afraid to contact the police, an accused murderer was taken off the streets, and we are all a little bit safer. Stories like this are repeated daily in Los Angeles.

Keeping America's neighborhoods safe requires our police forces to have the trust and help of everyone in our communities. My nearly 40 years in law enforcement, and my experience as police commissioner in Boston and New York City and as chief in Los Angeles, have taught me this.

Stressing the need to keep communities safe by working in partnership with victims and witnesses to crimes, Bratton points out important flaws in the federal government’s 287(g) program. He argues:

A person reporting a crime should never fear being deported, but such fears are real and palpable for many of our immigrant neighbors.

This fear is not unfounded. Earlier this month, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano announced that 11 more locations across the United States have agreed to participate in a controversial law enforcement program known as 287(g). The program gives local law enforcement agencies the powers of federal immigration agents by entering into agreements with Homeland Security's Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE. Although many local agencies have declined to participate in 287(g), 67 state and local law enforcement agencies are working with ICE, acting as immigration agents.

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