Colorado Police: “We Are Attempting to Find Local Solutions to Nationwide Problems”

America's Voice Blog

Posted 04/02/10 at 01:26pm

On Tuesday, the Police Executive Research Forum (PERF) convened about 40 state and local police officers from across Colorado to discuss immigration enforcement. The attendees reached the same conclusion as law enforcement professionals at previous PERF events in Phoenix, AZ and Raleigh, NC: the incoherence of federal immigration policy causes unnecessary difficulties for local police.

As Colorado Springs Police Chief Richard Myers told local TV station KRDO:

"Most of the attendees, if not all, felt that we do need to see more leadership coming out of Washington DC. We are attempting to find local solutions to nationwide problems."

In particular (as quoted in the Colorado Springs Gazette), Myers said, local police need to be able to make

"some differentiation between criminal aliens and those who are here undocumented with no other criminal offense."

PERF director Chuck Wexler has been convening these meetings across the country with the intention of bringing the concerns of local police officers to Washington to help craft a new, more sensible immigration policy. He elaborated on the difficulties law enforcement professionals have reported to him:

"You’ve got some 21-year-old police officer on the street pulling up to a car with a mother and father and three children who doesn’t have a driver’s license and who’s been in the community for 20 years. You know, that’s a problem. If they’ve been in an accident, or have been speeding, it’s up to that officer to figure out how to best deal with that. In most cases that will be resolved successfully, but there ought to be a way to deal with this larger population of people who are here but are undocumented."

His colleague, PERF Director of Communications Craig Fischer, told Spanish-language news agency EFE that:

"Washington needs to move more quickly to adopt coherent immigration reform."

For every tyrant like Joe Arpaio, there are countless local law enforcement professionals who know that immigration enforcement is the federal government's responsiiblity -- and who are waiting for Washington to stop blurring the line between undocumented immigrants and criminals and pass comprehensive reform. It's a shame that the longer Congress waits, the harder life gets for the majority of cops across the country who just want to do their own jobs.