Building Bridges to a Safer Community Without 287(g)

Image by conner395 via Flickr

In the last few years, we have seen an explosion of 287(g) agreements between ICE and local police departments. 287(g) is a federal program that allows local police to enforce federal immigration laws or assist in the enforcement of those laws. The idea was to assist the Federal immigration agencies with local manpower on the streets. The outcome of these agreements was not foreseen and now police chiefs are fighting to rebuild bridges to the immigrant communities.

With the onset of 287(g) the local immigrant communities became even more isolated and the police lost there ties to a community that had become suspicious of police activity began to fear all kinds of police involvement in there community. The police lost a conduit and to solving and preventing crimes. No longer can the police rely on a community to report or to open dialogue with a community that fears the police will now deport them.

The local police force is charged with "protecting and serving" the community. These agreemnets are impeding and preventing the police from performing these basic functions. We need a neutral police force that has an open dialogue with all members of the communty in order to protect and serve the population at large.

It seems that local police agree: Police Leaders Call For Immigration Reform

"We can’t afford to have a group of residents be afraid of reporting crime because they believe we may report them for deportation. To allow that fear to exist in the minds of victims or witnesses endangers them and the rest of the community and lets criminals off the hook."

The counterpoint to this story is that a Police Force is supposed to enforce the laws, and if someone is guilty of violating the law then the Police are obliged by their position to enforce those laws. The problem is that the immigration system in the United States is one of the most complicated areas of our Federal Law, even more so than the U.S. Tax Code. By this logic, we should have local police also enforcing our U.S. Tax Code. Better still what if we ask local police to begin enforcement of Federal Securites Law, they could help us find the next Bernie Madoff!

Simply put, 287(g) is a waste of police resources that burns bridges to an already isolated community.