Big City Police Chiefs Want to Bring the Undocumented out of the Shadows

Fifty chiefs of large urban police departments that have long experience dealing with immigrant communities asked Congress to support public safety measures to bring the undocumented out of the shadows. Their concern, of course, is for the public safety of citizens. To do that they need the trust of population. As long as workplace raids terrorize immigrant communities, victims of crimes or witnesses to crimes are reluctant to step forward, They also criticized the 287(g) program that gives the police a role in immigration enforcement. The police have neither time nor money for the job, especially with looming budget cuts. It is usually smaller police jurisdictions, new to large populations of immigrants, that are drawn to the program. Anti-immigrant groups, like the Center of Immigration Studies, dismissed the chiefs as "misguided" (See New York Times article.)