Editorial: Local governments should not be forced to act as immigration agents

The recent killing of Kathryn Steinle as she walked arm in arm with her father along San Francisco’s Embarcadero was horrific, even if the details remain murky. That Steinle’s alleged killer had seven previous felony convictions and had been deported five times only makes the incident more complicated and politically charged.
Amid the outrage over Steinle’s death and the debate over who was responsible for releasing her alleged killer from the San Francisco Sheriff’s Department’s custody in April instead of turning him over to immigration authorities, the U.S. House on Thursday passed a measure sponsored by Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-Alpine) that is, at best, poorly conceived public policy. The overreaching HR 3009 would withhold federal law enforcement grants from local governments that have laws precluding police from querying civilians about their immigration status. Similar measures have been proposed in the Senate.

The Obama administration opposes the bill for valid reasons: The federal government should not compel local law enforcement officers to serve as de facto immigration agents. Conscripting police into that role not only muddies responsibilities, but runs the very real risk of dissuading people living in the country illegally from reporting crimes they have witnessed, or in which they are the victims, for fear they might be deported. That compromises local police agencies’ fundamental responsibility for public safety.

It is reasonable, though, for local law enforcement to notify federal authorities when someone on the government’s list of priority removals — such as a violent criminal — is being released from jail. Not only reasonable, but necessary.

The focus of these legislative pushes are so-called sanctuary cities, which are largely fiction. In Los Angeles, the Police Department’s Special Order 40 directs that “officers shall not initiate police action with the objective of discovering the alien status of a person.” That does not prevent officers from turning over those arrested for other offenses to immigration authorities. It protects no one from federal immigration enforcement. It simply makes someone’s immigration status irrelevant to the local investigation at hand, and leaves immigration enforcement with the federal government, where it belongs.

Rather than threatening local governments and withholding grants, Congress should instead get serious about the root problem: the dysfunctional immigration system. The federal government needs to work cooperatively with local police agencies to make sure that dangerous criminals living here illegally are deported in a timely manner — while Congress and the president also work to pass fair, comprehensive immigration reform.

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