I know of few who advocate sending local police on immigration raids. On the other hand, many of us do insist that police should check the status of those arrested or cited in traffic stops. This is something that is happening more and more often around the country as police treat immigration violations like other illegal activity.

CHARLOTTE -- Police here operated for years under what amounts to a "don't ask, don't tell" policy toward illegal immigrants.

As elsewhere in the United States, law enforcement officers did not check the immigration status of people they came into contact with, and in the vast majority of cases, a run-in with the law carried little threat of deportation.

But that accommodation for the burgeoning illegal population ended abruptly in April, when the Mecklenburg County sheriff's office began to enforce immigration law, placing more than 100 people a month into deportation proceedings. Some of them had been charged with violent crimes, others with traffic infractions.

The program takes one of the most aggressive stances in the United States toward illegal immigrants, and officials in scores of communities, including Herndon and Loudoun County, have been considering adopting their own version. The House earlier this month was weighing a measure "reaffirming" the authority of local law enforcement agencies to arrest people on suspicion of violating immigration laws.

Some Latino leaders say the program here is contributing to a discriminatory climate in which Hispanic drivers feel as if they are being "hunted" by police. And some law enforcement agencies elsewhere have shied away from enforcing immigration laws, saying that doing so would rupture any trust they have developed in Latino neighborhoods.

But advocates see it as a way to catch illegal immigrants who slip through porous federal enforcement measures and then run afoul of state or local police.

Perhaps the best way of explaining the goal of the program is found here, in the words of an immigration attorney.

"They're putting the pressure on these people. They're scaring them. People say we can't deport 10 million. But you don't have to. If you deport enough of them, others will go back voluntarily because they don't want to live in these conditions."

You deter behavior by giving it a negative consequence. While there will always be some illegal immigrants, we can deter folks from coming and encourage them to leave by making the conditions a bit more inhospitable.

Police check warrants and records. Checking citizenship is one more legitimate inquiry, given the plague of illegals that have come into this country in recent years. LetÂ’s see more of it.

Posted by: Greg at 12:39 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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