Valley police deal with law enforcement and immigration

Texas legislators moved last month to try to include immigration enforcement in the responsibilities of local police departments, but area officials insist the differences among communities would make it almost impossible to uniformly implement those laws.

In Brownsville, a losing competition for staff with the U.S. Border Patrol and the city’s daily flow of legal and illegal immigrants have resulted in a police department with barely enough personnel to carry out its regular duties. (Click here to learn about immigration enforcement in other parts of the country)

State Rep. Frank Corte Jr., R-San Antonio, and state Sen. Dan Patrick, R-Austin, have sought an opinion from Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott on whether the state’s Legislature has the authority to invalidate sanctuary policies.

In Brownsville, as in most of the Rio Grande Valley and hundreds of cities across the country, such unwritten laws allow officers to practice a “don’t ask” policy regarding immigration status.

“In these cities, if someone’s suspected of violating immigration law, (police officers) won’t go after them,” Corte said. “That’s amazing to me, because any law should be upheld. The question is: Can we create laws that prevent sanctuary cities?”

Sanctuary laws, so named because they provide safety for undocumented immigrants who may be crime victims, allow those individuals to benefit from the protection of law enforcement without risk of deportation. Without such laws, victims of rape or those with important knowledge of criminals might not risk interacting with police.

CHALLENGES
Brownsville police Chief Carlos Garcia said the policy responds to an important logistical need as well: The understaffed department has struggled to compete for employees with Border Patrol, which pays a starting annual salary of $35,595 to the police’s $28,131.

With the city’s estimated 20,000 undocumented immigrants, Garcia said, adding immigration enforcement to his officers’ workload is simply unrealistic.

“I would hope if anybody would place that burden on local law enforcement, they would give us the money and the manpower to do it,” Garcia said.

Local police untrained in immigration enforcement also could face the risk of being accused of racial profiling, a strategy regularly used by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, if they inquire about immigration status.

Garcia said that with Brownsville’s 95 percent Hispanic population, the profiling likely would be based on economics rather than race.

Hidalgo County Sheriff Lupe Treviño also decried any plan that would force his agency to handle immigration issues.

In submitted testimony to a state Senate committee, Treviño wrote that a peace officer’s primary responsibility is to provide a sense of security by protecting life and property.

“If we are transformed into state immigration officers by virtue of state legislation, then by default we will become enforcers of a failing federal immigration policy,” Treviño wrote.

There are an estimated 100,000 illegal immigrants living in Hidalgo County, according to Treviño. A plan requiring police to enforce immigration policies would erode the trust the department has built with immigrant communities.

“Some will see the police as oppressors,” Treviño wrote.

Though Corte and Patrick’s opinion request did not provide budget or staffing solutions, they point to a new ICE program, 287 (g), as an example of a federally funded initiative that provides immigration enforcement training to local police. To date, 62 departments across the country have participated in the program, including three in Texas.

Though the letter names 287 (g) as an example of federal-state collaboration, it provides no qualitative assessment of the program’s success.

WEIGHING IN
Among local entities, opinions on the program are divided.

In Phoenix, Ariz., where the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office is waging one of the most ostentatious crackdowns on illegal immigration in the country — with flourishes like forcing detainees to wear pink underwear and eat green bologna — the less extreme Phoenix Police Department has begun a modest 287 (g) program with mixed results.

“Success is yet to be measured,” said Lt. Lauri Burgett of the department’s Violent Crimes Bureau, where the program began late last year.

Six officers who specialize in investigating “drop-houses,” or residences where undocumented immigrants are taken when they are trafficked into the United States, have been trained in the program. These officers are needed at such sites, Burgett said, where they can target the drug trafficking, slavery, physical and sexual abuse, and extortion that occur there.

But after watching the toll the work has taken on these officers, Burgett said she would not recommend training entire departments in the 287 (g) program.

“Processing someone who is here illegally is extremely time-consuming for our officers,” Burgett said. “There is some value to (287 (g) training), but each individual processed takes about two hours. Multiply that by the 27 people you might find in a drop-house, and you’ve got an officer who’s out for a week.”

ICE describes 287 (g)’s achievements to date in more absolute terms.

“It’s a definite success,” said Richard Rocha, an ICE spokesman. “The public benefits when federal and local law enforcement agencies are able to combine their resources.”

But even Rocha notes the program may not fit the needs of many police departments, or that they may not have the infrastructure to support the program.

“On the border, we have an expedited removal process,” he said. “Border Patrol is present, so they can handle that.”

Garcia, the Brownsville police chief, estimates about 5 percent of those booked into Brownsville’s jail are found to be here illegally and are taken into federal custody.

He said he does not plan to participate in 287 (g) and hopes the final opinion from the state attorney general will deter Corte and Patrick from pursuing antisanctuary legislation when the Texas legislative session begins in January.

“If we had the responsibility (for) enforcing federal laws, it would not only change the demographics of this community, it would deteriorate the relationship between the police and its citizens,” Garcia said. “If we take on both, they won’t support us. They’ll be saying, ‘Here comes the twoheaded monster.’”