« mmijiririhrb
Local enforcement of fed’s immigration law weakens public safety
BY CASSAN DRA VILLA N U EVA
C O N T R IB U T IN G C O L U M N IS T
hairline crack in the windshield of my
sister’s car turned our family’s world
upside down in 2010. On their way
home from the store to celebrate my
A
fiXwft
nephew’s birthday, my
sister was stopped by
police two blocks from
home. In the passenger
seat was her husband with
a birthday cake in his lap
and three of their children
were in the backseat.
For years, they had
lived cautiously in the
shadows and practiced what they would do if
they were pulled over or stopped by the
police. They talked about how they would
know their rights, remain silent, and not
answer any questions about immigration
status. But all that rehearsal was useless
when the police threatened to detain my
sister and kids as well for not answering
about my brother-in-law’s immigration status.
Out of fear for harm against his family, he
admitted he was undocumented and the
police dragged him out of the car and took
him away.
I couldn’t find the words to explain to my
nieces and nephews why “the superheroes”
stole their Daddy and took him away. How
does one even begin to explain deportation
and immigration process and laws to a 5-year-
old?
Like so many other communities
throughout the United States, when police
begin to enforce federal immigration law, a
severe disconnection and distrust for local
law enforcement immediately ensues. This is
SAFETY and
JUSTICE
Cassandra
Villanueva is the
director of
Organizing and
Advocacy with the
Partnership for Safety
and fustice. P S J is a
statewide, non-profit
advocacy
organization
dedicated to making
Oregon’s approach to
crime and public
safety more effective
and just.
because far too often, the implementation of
such collaborations results in high levels of
illegal racial profiling by police and pre-textual
arrests to target people who they think are
without proper immigration papers. As a
result, people, including families with children
and whole communities lose their trust in the
public safety system’s ability to keep people
safe and prevent crime. People become
fearful of police. People become less likely to
report incidences of crime or seek help in
emergency situations, including acts of
domestic violence. People are less likely to
come forward as witnesses of crime. Sadly,
public safety becomes compromised rather
than strengthened. In many instances, this is
further compounded when survivors of crime
are turned away from accessing emergency
services due to lack of program funding
because county and state resources are being
prioritized on things that don’t work.
In Multnomah County, the collaboration
between police and Immigration and Customs
Enforcement (ICE) is just as devastating as it
is anywhere else in the country. The
implications of this magnitude mirror the
damaging and rippling effects seen at the
national level: broken families, broken
communities, and a broken public safety
system; all of which have not made us any
safer. At a time with limited resources, school
closures, and the eroding of our social safety
net, taxpayer dollars are not being prioritized,
and scarce law enforcement resources are
being diverted away from strategies that are
proven to reduce and prevent crime.
Approximately 36 counties in Oregon
collaborate with IC E , but Multnomah County
would be the first to set a precedent for
policy on detainer (“hold”) requests from
IC E . These detainer requests are part of an
immigration screening process where a high
priority “hold” is placed on people who pose
a threat to public safety. It is not a mandatory
requirement and is problematic for a variety
of reasons. Primarily, it undermines a
person’s constitutional rights to due process
and deprives people of their dignity. In
addition, research from the University of
California Berkeley School of Law found that
"... of the ICE detainers issued pursuant to
the program, only two percent were for felony
cases, while the other 98 percent were for
misdemeanor cases.” This clearly
demonstrates that such programs incentivize
racial profiling as a means to arrest people to
check their immigration statuses. Further,
despite the flaws in many of these programs
throughout the United States, such
collaborations continue to drain local
resources at the cost of precious community
resources. If anything, Multnomah County
could serve as a model for other counties of
how to effectively draw the line between local
law enforcement and federal immigration
authority. IC E ’s hold on Multnomah County
blurs that line and destroys that confidence.
It is no secret that our state and local
counties have limited resources to fund
proven and effective strategies, for creating
safe, strong and healthy communities. In fact,
we see it every day as schools lay off teachers
and cries for basic access to health, housing
and human services go unheard. In these
tough economic times, it’s more important
than ever to focus on prioritizing precious tax
dollars to prevent crime, not use scarce
public safety resources to enforce federal
immigration law.
In Evening, Then You
By Kareem Ali
Blue emeralds
And yellow goldenrod rolling in
And Etruscan horses
Simmering into a juniper of wind.
Circling over Alexandria
You picture Florence
Or Tuscany opening up the sea to a ray of light.
Yet even from this extreme distance
Your lips
Rose like a flesh of thought
Circling and plunging,
Then circling again
Into a sphere of drunken hummingbirds-singing.
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