Officers Back New Vision of Sanctuary

Los Angeles Police Officer Frank Flores’ roots are on the Eastside, and he knows many a case that could be solved only with the help of illegal immigrants.

He supports the concept of Special Order 40, the so-called sanctuary policy that prohibits LAPD officers from asking about contacts’ immigration status.

But Flores, a Hollywood gang detail expert on the violent Mara Salvatrucha gang, said he also backed Police Chief William J. Bratton’s efforts to clarify officers’ right to tip off immigration officials when deported felons return to this country illegally.

“You are not going after the produce seller or the ice cream guy -- people trying to make a living. You’re going after violent gang members who are committing unspeakable acts on immigrants, like trying to rape a woman in front of a kid,” Flores said. “Its another valuable tool to get rid of these gangsters.”

Flores, one of a few LAPD officers already working with the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, said that for years it was verboten to even discuss relaxing the decades-old ban on contacting the bureau. And in that time, he added, deported felons became heroes to their peers by sneaking back into the country.

“I’ve got a guy out there right now. He’s been deported three times. He’s back here,” Flores said. “[Edgar Cordova Arias’] got a rap sheet 20 pages long: drugs, thefts and robberies. Now he is VIP in the gang for getting back here.”

The LAPD sanctuary policy, adopted in 1979 when Daryl F. Gates was chief, was quickly copied by other large cities.

In Chicago, by the mayor’s executive order, officers aren’t allowed to inquire about anyone’s immigration status. At the other end of the spectrum is Orange County, where Sheriff Mike Carona is considering training specialized investigators to turn over some suspects to immigration.

Authorities from Miami to tiny Storm Lake, Iowa, are rethinking policy. Miami’s Police Department, which had a blanket sanctuary rule, now alerts immigration when it has intelligence that gang members are involved in new crimes, according to Police Chief John Timoney.

In Grand Island, Neb., the site of a huge influx of immigrants, police will call immigration officials if they spot a deported felon back in town, Police Capt. Pete Kortum said.

In L.A., Bratton wants new guidelines that he says will clarify what was always the case: Officers can ask supervisors to check the immigration status of deported felons that they believe have crept back in illegally.

Since the LAPD went public with its plan, however, immigrants’ advocates have warned that police may be opening the door to deportations of residents stopped for minor offenses.

They point to the Rampart scandal in the late 1990s, in which officers turned suspects over to immigration officials as part of a wider circle of corruption.

Street cops, however, said that can’t happen again. “We are searching for the predators, not the prey,” said Cmdr. Charlie Beck of Rampart Division, who estimates that 1,000 gang members have returned to his territory after being convicted and deported. “Officers who make stops without reasonable suspicion are disciplined or fired.”

Some officers say privately that Bratton is not going far enough in lowering the police-immigration firewall.

“You’re tying the hands of the department yet again,” said one police headquarters-based sergeant, who, along with other officers, refused to be named for fear of reprisal.

“Let us use all the laws,” he said, noting that entering the United States without papers is a crime.

In Los Angeles, Hollywood Division Capt. Michael Downing said the issue came to a head because of confusion over how to approach previously deported gang members with ties to Central America.

In January, one LAPD officer, writing for the conservative website National Review Online, reflected disgruntlement among the rank and file.

“This prohibition goes to the laughable extreme of protecting even those who have already been deported after being convicted of a felony and serving time,” said the officer, who writes under the pseudonym Jack Dunphy.

With as many as 30,000 illegal immigrants with criminal records in Los Angeles County, the problem is not a small one, according to police.

“This wasn’t a subject you talk about through the ‘80s, ‘90s and early 2000s. Only recently has it become an issue to discuss,” Downing said. “But this is about freedom from these criminals. The freedom to be free from being raped, robbed and murdered, and freedom to walk the streets, raise a family and put food on the table.”

In Rampart Division east of downtown in recent months, immigration detectives have arrested 18 Mara Salvatrucha gang members on suspicion of the federal crime of illegal reentry to the country, which can carry a prison sentence of 10 years or more.

In one February case, the car used in a drive-by shooting was traced to Carlos Figueroa, an alleged gang member with a history of violent crime.

Beck said in an interview that police became aware of Figueroa’s deported status and got a warrant for his arrest for illegal reentry.

Other divisions are not copying their action, Beck said, because of a widespread misconception that the department won’t allow it.

Two police officers in Boyle Heights, who asked not to be identified for fear of reprisal from supervisors, say they recently picked up a man on a parole violation who had entered the country illegally for the third time after being deported for committing felonies.

“Why should they be allowed to be here if they’ve already been convicted of a felony crime and been deported?” one officer asked. “They are not here to make a better life for themselves. They are only victimizing the community.”

In the Hollenbeck station, which covers the Eastside, some officers are more understanding of the rationale behind Special Order 40.

“Everyone here has their rights, whether they’re legal or illegal,” Officer John Pedroza said.

His colleague, Officer Oscar Casini, agreed. “It doesn’t upset me that you get arrested, you get deported and are back here. But if you come back here after committing a felony and you’re wanted or you break the law again, we’ll arrest you, and whatever immigration does is their policy.”

In Hollywood, officers aren’t waiting. Flores recently helped capture Cristobal Mora, an illegal immigrant and White Fence gang member who had done time in the high-security Pelican Bay State Prison for a series of violent crimes and was deported only to return, the officer said.

“Like a lot of these guys, when he came to the neighborhood he was a catalyst for crime,” Flores said. “So we locked him up.”

Times staff writers John Beckham, Andrew Blankstein, Stephanie Simon and David Zucchino contributed to this report.