Police Fear Trump Immigration Orders May Handcuff Effort to Fight Gangs
Police Fear Trump Immigration Orders May Handcuff Effort to Fight Gangs:- After five teenagers were found dead in this Long Island town last year, murdered by the members of a transnational gang with ties to El Salvador, a local problem turned into a national flash point, a referendum on illegal immigration.
Now, in the wake of President Trump’s broad executive orders on deporting undocumented immigrants, Suffolk County police officials are wrestling with a conundrum facing police departments across the country: how to shut down a violent gang when the immigrants they will need as witnesses and tipsters may be afraid to come forward.
“The last thing I want is a fearful community,” the Suffolk County police commissioner, Timothy Sini, said in a recent interview. “Whether it’s fear of criminals or fear of law enforcement. We solve crimes based on people coming to us. It’s that simple. If people think they’re going to get deported every time they speak to a police officer, it’s not helpful.”
Part of the issue is that Mr. Trump wants local police officers to act as immigration agents, threatening to withhold federal funding from those departments that do not cooperate. So Mr. Sini is far from alone in trying to balance public safety with the threat of losing millions of dollars in funding.
Last month, the International Association of Chiefs of Police issued a statement saying that it would “strongly oppose any initiative that would mandate that state and local law enforcement agencies play a role in the enforcement of federal immigration law.”
The chiefs urged “clear guidance” on how, or even whether, to make local policy changes. Sanctuary cities, which limit their agencies and local law enforcement officials from assisting in the enforcement of federal immigration laws, are facing a similar question.
But the confusion about how Mr. Sini’s department will enforce national policy is clearly provoking more fear among undocumented immigrants in Suffolk County.
“In the absence of any clear direction of the police, people assume that whatever we’re getting from the federal level is coming down to the local level,” said Irma Solis, the director of the Suffolk County office of the New York Civil Liberties Union.
“People will say, ‘I will think twice, or three times, before I end up reporting something,’” Ms. Solis added.
Mr. Sini told Ms. Solis and other advocates at a meeting in January, “If a victim or a witness comes to us, we don’t inquire about their immigration status.”
But still, some are unconvinced.
At the Brentwood office of Make the Road New York, an advocacy group that works with undocumented immigrants, members said they were very anxious.
“You see this fear that they are going to attack us, the Hispanics, because they have power from higher up, and the sheriff is cooperating,” said Luis, 41, a father of two daughters, who immigrated from El Salvador without authorization 10 years ago. He did not want his sur name to be used because he is afraid for his older daughter’s safety in the high school, he said.
That was the same school — Brentwood Ross — that Kayla Cuevas and her best friend, Nisa Mickens, attended. On Sept. 13, they were killed by members of the gang MS-13, the police said, their bodies found by a cul-de-sac near an elementary school.
Kayla’s mother, Evelyn Rodriguez, approved of Mr. Trump’s aggressive tactics toward deporting gang members.
“I believe everybody should have that American dream, coming here and working hard for your family and doing the right thing,” Ms. Rodriguez, whose parents came to New York from Puerto Rico, said in a recent interview. “I do not accept the ones that are coming over with the criminal record long as ever and doing the crimes here and killing our kids.”
Law enforcement officials say that not every MS-13 member is an undocumented immigrant, but that the gang recruits from a base of unaccompanied Central American minors who entered the country illegally.
Since Sept. 13, the police in Suffolk County have arrested more than 90 MS-13 members, with many in federal custody as officials gather evidence to charge them under organized crime law. The gang, also known as La Mara Salvatrucha, was responsible for the killings of 11 people in Suffolk County last year, the police said. It was not clear if the murders would be included in the charges.
As part of Mr. Trump’s executive orders, he directed the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency to expand its gang-fighting crime initiative. Even before the orders, Suffolk County had rejoined a joint gang task force with the F.B.I. and increased its own street patrols last fall.
But to Ms. Rodriguez, it is not enough.
“I told the Third Precinct, I want you to be pressing on this,” Ms. Rodriguez said, referring to the police precinct that covers Brentwood. “If you see three, four individuals in front of a store, I want you to roll up on them and see ID and if they don’t have ID, then you bring them in.”
Even as Mr. Sini has tried to make the police department more transparent within the community, he does so amid Suffolk County’s tangled history with Latino immigrants.
In 1986, at the height of the civil war in El Salvador, the Suffolk County Legislature declared the county a place of sanctuary for refugees fleeing conflict in Central America. But once the population grew from a couple of thousand to almost 7,000 immigrants, attitudes changed. By 1993, that resolution was reversed.
According to census statistics through 2014, 58,426 Salvadorans live in Suffolk County, and nearly one-third live in Brentwood. Including immigrants from Mexico, Colombia, Ecuador and the Dominican Republic, Hispanics and Latinos represent 68 percent of the population in Brentwood.
Over the years, law enforcement policies toward undocumented immigrants have hardened. In 2006, the Suffolk County sheriff, Vincent DeMarco, invited Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers to station themselves permanently in the county jails. Officers would comply with the enforcement agency’s requests to hold prisoners 48 hours after their scheduled release so that their legal status in the country could be investigated.
In 2014, in response to rulings in federal lawsuits against similar policies in other jurisdictions, Mr. DeMarco changed the jail’s detainer policy to require a warrant from a judge in order to detain undocumented immigrants.
Then, in December, Mr. DeMarco reversed the policy again, saying he would honor requests from ICE to hold prisoners who had possibly violated immigration law. Mr. DeMarco did so after neighboring Nassau County made a similar change.
“To me, that is good public policy for the county, but it’s also good public policy for the country,” Mr. DeMarco said, adding that he considered the change even before Mr. Trump was elected.
But how undocumented immigrants land in jail is now the prime concern for advocates in Suffolk County, who worry that traffic stops and routine interactions could accelerate deportations.
Many Latino immigrants in Suffolk County already feel as if they are under suspicion from a police force that has, in the past, been less than sympathetic. The community still resents an unsolved 2010 murder of a Salvadoran man. The Police Department is still under Justice Department supervision after the settlement of a 2009 discrimination investigation.
Then in 2014, a Suffolk County police sergeant, Scott Greene, was arrested on charges of stealing from Latino drivers during traffic stops.
“Maybe the average white guy on the street in Suffolk County has no idea who Sergeant Greene is,” Mr. Sini said. “But ask the average Latino and they know exactly who Sergeant Greene is, and it kills the department.”
“We could do 6,000 community events and talk to people, but one Sergeant Greene, and we’re back to Square 1,” he said.
Mr. Sini, 36, a former federal prosecutor, became the police commissioner in December 2015, after Police Chief James Burke was indicted on charges of covering up the assault of a heroin addict.
Ms. Rodriguez, who lost her daughter to gang violence, attributed the rise of gang activity to what she sees as the Brentwood School District’s lackadaisical policies for monitoring students and responding to threats, including those she reported on behalf of Kayla. Ms. Rodriguez has retained a lawyer to sue the school district.
But mostly, she wants government officials — from Washington to New York — to understand the urgency of the situation. “I want them to really acknowledge that there is a problem,” Ms. Rodriguez said, “especially here on Long Island in Brentwood.”
Source:- https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/22/nyregion/police-fear-trump-immigration-orders-may-handcuff-effort-to-fight-gangs.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Fus&action=click&contentCollection=us®ion=stream&module=stream_unit&version=latest&contentPlacement=8&pgtype=sectionfront
