Immigrant Daily

Alienating Immigrant Communities

In this great article, CNN’s Ruben Navarrette makes the argument that local law enforcement agencies should not be in the business of enforcing immigration laws.  He argues that such an expansion of local police powers will lead to alienation of immigrant communities.  He argues that if the local police begins to enforce federal immigration laws, then they will lose the trust of the local immigrant community, which will in turn lead to higher crime rates, caused by the fact that immigrants will be too afraid to report crime or to cooperate with their local sheriff or police.

He writes:

Now the issue is raging in Phoenix, Arizona, where media hound Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio struck an agreement with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, authorizing the training of 100 deputies to arrest illegal immigrants who pose a threat to national security or public safety. Among the more than 1,000 people arrested so far: corn vendors scooped off city streets. You know the world is a dangerous place when food vendors are considered a threat to national security.

The truth rests in the last three lines of that quote — most people who are being treated as criminals are no criminals at all.  They are hard working individuals who came to the U.S. in search of a better life, peace or freedom.   For those that commit violent crimes, immigration law enforcement is a fine way to send them to their home countries after they pay for their illegal actions here, but for the majority of people who’s only crime was to enter the U.S. without authorization, jail or deportation should not be feared on daily basis.  Lets have humanitarian immigration policies — let people come to this country for work legally and don’t make them scale tall border fencing and cross deadly deserts.