We Can’t Let The Cops Ask About Crimes, Can We?

Police officers are in the business of tracking down and arresting criminals. Unfortunately, the Open Borders crowd has succeeded in getting a lot of locales to forbid making inquiries about immigration status. That results in absurdities like this one from the Left Coast.

Central American community leaders on Wednesday demanded to meet with Los Angeles Police Chief William J. Bratton to discuss proposed guidelines allowing police to make limited immigration inquiries about convicted felons they suspect reentered the U.S. illegally.

Under Special Order 40, adopted in 1979 to encourage illegal immigrants to report crime, LAPD officers are prevented from inquiring about a person's residency status.

However, Bratton plans to issue a clarification stating that officers can check on felons, mostly violent gang members, who were deported only to return illegally.

More than half a dozen of the community activists said clarifying the police's relationship with federal immigration officials could discourage immigrant witnesses or victims from turning to authorities to help fight crime.

Discourage ALL immigrant witnesses or victims, or discourage border-jumping witnesses and victims from reporting crimes? Well, we all know the answer there. Allowing the police to question someone about immigration crimes would discourage immigration criminals from turning to the police. Could you imagine preventing cops from asking drug dealers about drug sales because it might keep them from reporting robberies when someone steals their drug money?

The activists said they wanted to hear from Bratton himself about the specific policy language as well as safeguards to prevent police from "casting a wider net" to target illegal immigrants.

"The Los Angeles Police Department should deal with crime," added Isabel Cardenas, a longtime Salvadoran American community organizer. "Immigration should be totally separate. The change could give way to abuse."

Ms. Cardenas, this is about the police dealing with crimes. You may not have realized it, but it is a violation of the law for the border-jumpers you are trying to protect to even be in this country without the proper legal documents. By definition, seeking their removal is dealing with a crime. If you want that law change, you need to lobby your Senators and Congressmen to decriminalize illegal immigration and throw open the borders of the country to every Tomas, Rico, and Geraldo who can swim the Rio Grande or sneak across the desert.

Assistant Chief George Gascon said Wednesday that Bratton was willing to meet with the group, not only to discuss the clarification but also to spell out the reasons behind it.

"The policy is very clear," Gascon said. "The clarification has to do with people who were convicted of a felony, deported from this country and have reentered illegally, and we become of aware of it. It's very narrowly focused."

Police say some officers are confused about how to approach previously deported criminals — most with ties to violent international street gangs — with multiple misdemeanor or felony convictions.

Yeah, that’s right, these activists are afraid of the possible arrest and re-deportation of convicted violent felons, especially narco-terrorists. They don’t care about the crime – they care about getting more of their people into the country. They are, in effect, the fifth column of the Mexican invasion force.