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.
Yet every day our effectiveness is diminished because immigrants living and working in our communities are afraid to have any contact with the police. 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.
Some in Los Angeles have asked why the LAPD doesn’t participate. My officers can’t prevent or solve crimes if victims or witnesses are unwilling to talk to us because of the fear of being deported. That basic fact led to the implementation almost 30 years ago of the LAPD’s policy on immigrants, which has come to be known as Special Order 40. The order prohibits LAPD officers from initiating contact with someone solely to determine whether they are in the country legally. The philosophy that underlies that policy is simple: Criminals are the biggest benefactors when immigrants fear the police. We can’t solve crimes that aren’t reported because the victims are afraid to come forward to the police.
The idea of engaging all members of the public in reporting crime and identifying criminals not only helps us with short- and medium-term goals of reducing crime; it helps improve relations with community members. We all have an interest in helping our young people develop into healthy, educated and law-abiding adults. Breeding fear and distrust of authority among some of our children could increase rates of crime, violence and disorder as those children grow up to become fearful and distrustful adolescents and adults. That is why the Los Angeles Police Department has not participated in 287(g) and the federal government is not pressuring the department to do so.
Americans want a solution to our immigration dilemma, as do law enforcement officials across this nation. But the solution isn’t turning every local police department into an arm of Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
The Police Foundation published a report in April titled “The Role of Local Police: Striking a Balance Between Immigration Enforcement and Civil Liberties.” The report confirms that when local police enforce immigration laws, it undermines their core public safety mission, diverts scarce resources, increases their exposure to liability and litigation, and exacerbates fear in communities that are already distrustful of police.
The report concluded that to optimize public safety, the federal government must enact comprehensive immigration reform. As police chief of one of the most diverse cities in the United States, and possibly the world, I agree. As I leave my position as leader of the LAPD, I will encourage my successor to adopt the same rigid attitude toward keeping Special Order 40 and keeping the mission of the men and women of the department focused on community cooperation instead of community alienation.
Working with victims and witnesses of crimes closes cases faster and protects all of our families by getting criminals off the street. We must pass immigration reform and bring our neighbors out of the shadows so they get the police service they need and deserve. When officers can speak freely with victims and witnesses, it goes a long way toward making every American neighborhood much safer.
William J. Bratton is chief of the Los Angeles Police Department. The Police Foundation’s report is available online at http://www.policefoundation.org/strikingabalance.
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Sheriff Joe has been demonized because he actually carries out his duties, unlike a large majority of law enforcement departments when it comes to illegal immigration? Hey! Don’t get me wrong hundreds of county police chiefs are operating under the federal training program 287 G. This means they are deputized as federal agents to apprehend foreign nationals. Ariapo has been accused of racial profiling, when the truth is that Arizona and other border states are overwhelmed by an indigenous people, from south of the border. This political correctness has been adopted by the Democratic-Marxist-Socialist party members, which has distorted the laws of this country to benefit parasite business organizations and wide open border fanatics. Why should Sheriff Joe Ariapo of Maricopa County, Arizona be even flustered by the feds stripping his use of the 287 G police, apprehend, detain, question suspicious people? When San Francisco mayor Galvin Newsom and Los Angeles Antonio R. Villaraigosa and all the other–SANCTUARY CITIES AND STATES, completely ignore federal laws?
Sen. Diane Feinstein D-CA in 1986 along with the Board of Supervisors was the first to inaugurate the pro-illegal alien Sanctuary City policy in San Francisco, then the others followed. After that benefit-giving accelerated with free health care, education and illegal females who stole into America got instant citizenship for their Anchor babies. Taxpayers complimented their illegal actions with low income housing, free breakfast and lunches for her other children and a whole host of other undisclosed government payouts. Then why is the California screaming we are in debt, when taxpayer once again demanded no more free handouts in proposition 187, but the class action lawsuit was conveniently shut-off from reaching the Supreme court.
VOTE AGAINST GAVIN NEWSOM FOR THE CALIFORNIA GOVERNOR, WHEN HE IS A MAJOR PROBLEM OF SAN FRANCISCO AS A SANCTUARY CITY? PRIOR TO THIS SUDDEN CHANGE OF MIND, THIS MAYOR HAD BEEN THE INSTIGATOR OF SANCTUARY POLICY FOR SAN FRAN?
City Manager Micheal Andronivich as far back as 2004 said illegal families were draining Los Angeles county coffers of billions. Even today California is not floating in red ink, as billions are still being drained by incompetent Sacramento assembly who have been pandering to illegal aliens for years.Laying around the feet of Governors, Mayors, Judges, state and City officials is the murdered bodies of Jamiel Shaw and Bologna family of three, slaughtered by illegal alien gang members, whose police departments had failed to inform ICE before the bloody incidents happened. We certainly don’t need these anti-sovereignty elected public officials from running our country. Go to NUMBERSUSA for negative immigration enforcement grading and throw them out of office. Go to JUDICIAL WATCH for corruption revealed in government. Tell your lawmakers to enforce E-Verify, the 287 G uniformed police enforcement. Clean the slate clean of illegal labor with this E-Verify computer based program, that must be permanently installed in every business nationwide.
Light a fire under nonchalant politicians who are selling American workers futures to highest bidder contact WASHINGTON at 202-224-3121 As easily as you voted for these people, you can vote them OUT?
Funny how this self serving article doesn’t mention rather or not the murderer was an illegal alien! It doesn’t mention rather or not the victim was an illegal alien. If either one of them was the murder would not have occured if they weren’t here!
Strange how the police want to crack a big murder case but don’t want to get their hands dirty protecting all of us from criminal aliens.
I, for one, am tired of law enforcement choosing which laws they will or won’t enforce, especially if a majority of taxpaying citizens, that pay their salaries, by the way, want the illegals (criminals) gone!
I’m glad to see this East Coast law enforcement HACK leave!! He was nothing more than a “yes man” for lame brain pro illegal alien Los Angeles Mayor Villaraigosa. I’d like to see a list of all the big cases were cracked because of the assistance of illegal alien witnesses.