The primary responsibility of local law enforcement agencies is to combat crime in the communities they're sworn to protect. That's why we have local law enforcement agencies. It stands to reason that local governments should avoid like the plague policies that threaten to impede that mission. And therein lies what we believe to be the quick and relatively easy answer to a question Rogers officials have been asking themselves: Should Rogers enroll in a program that would train the city's police officers to enforce federal immigration laws ? The answer is no. We share the worries of many that turning police officers into immigration officers would lead to the under-reporting of crime in the Hispanic community. In fact, we see it as a virtual certainty. If we were talking about bicycle thefts and the vandalism of mailboxes, that might be an acceptable tradeoff. It might be worth allowing some criminals to fly under the radar so that others could be rounded up and deported - and so people could feel like something, anything, was being done about illegal immigration. But that's not what we're talking about, and everyone knows it. The immigrant community experiences the same range of criminal behavior the rest of our communities do. That means assault, rape, crimes against children and countless other heinous acts none of us should ever want to go unreported or underreported, whether the victims are U. S. citizens or not. But we can see that happening if immigrants have to worry that going to the police might mean being deported. Police officers would no doubt assure victimized immigrants that catching criminals - especially violent ones - is their first and only priority. But that will be harder for immigrants to believe than it is now. Some simply won't believe it.
For our money, feeling a little better about immigration isn't worth seeing one crook, one rapist or one child molester skate because their crimes are never reported. That's not a tradeoff we're willing to make. Our guess is that most police officers probably feel the same way.
Again, no one knows for sure this would happen, or how often it might happen. But we find it hard to believe it wouldn't be a problem, which leads us to ask, why is a move like this even being considered ? Of course, we know the answer to that question. The failure of our federal government to address the problem of illegal immigration has led communities across the country to engage in this sort of debate. It has people everywhere - most of whom just want to do something, anything - tied up in knots.
We'd like to see these people channel their energies more effectively, by getting together and applying heat - from the bottom up - to the senators and representatives in Washington who got us into this mess. But that may require a level of focus and cohesiveness that doesn't currently exist.
At the very least, however, we must have very frank discussions about any ideas put forward, including this plan to train police officers for immigration enforcement. It would give already busy police officers even more duties. It could also leave the city wide open to charges of racial profiling. But the real problem is that it could keep someone who's been victimized by a criminal from coming forward. If that happened even one time, it would be one time too many. But it'll happen more than that.
It's a tradeoff none of us should be willing to make.
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