Civil talk, livid e-mails over illegal immigrants

The police chief and the sheriff played nice Tuesday night. And because both are polished speakers and easy on the ears, their immigration “debate” at the Chapman University School of Law never really took off. At the end, the moderator complimented them and the audience for keeping things civil, and Lord knows we could use more civility.

Except ...

Except that there’s a lot of anger out there on the immigration issue, and the polite exchanges between Garden Grove Police Chief Joe Polisar and Orange County Sheriff Mike Carona seemed as much like disconnect as enlightenment.

Why has no politician other than Pat Buchanan or Tom Tancredo come out and said what’s really on the mind of anti-illegal immigrant pundits: “Hey, this is my country, I like it the way it is, I don’t want it to be like Mexico. I want my culture preserved and illegal immigration has the potential to destroy it.”

--from an e-mail I received this week

To be fair, Polisar and Carona were invited to talk about using some police or sheriff’s deputies to enforce federal immigration law. Carona supports the idea and is doing it, but Polisar says it would be detrimental to the “community policing” efforts that have reduced crime in Garden Grove by 46% since 1993 because it might cool relations between police and the large immigrant community.

Both, however, decried the federal government’s failure to defuse the illegal immigration issue. And both agreed that residency-status checks are appropriate for arrestees and that deportation is the answer for convicted felons after they do their time.

Empowering some of his cops to handle immigration-related tasks, Polisar said, would be “impractical, at best” and even more difficult without proper resources and training. And, he said, he still hasn’t heard a good argument for how police officers would get into the immigration-enforcement business without racial profiling of suspects.

He later identified 10 areas of “compromise” that would, at least, make the prospect somewhat more attractive to local police. Most involved things the federal government either has not done (secured borders, enforced hiring laws) or should do.

So, amigo, you got any answers, any solutions? Do you give a damn? Or should I assume that 20 million more illegals and more 9/11s (or worse) are going to be just fine by you?

-- another e-mail on the subject

Carona said his decision to train some of his deputies to handle federal immigration-related matters stemmed from a study of the jail population in recent years. On any given day, he said, as many as 6,800 inmates are housed and around 15% are undocumented residents. In 2005, he said, the department screened some 3,000 of the more than 15,000 foreign nationals who had been jailed and found that about 75% were in the country illegally.

Carona said he thinks local police can and should involve themselves in federal immigration issues, but agreed that it should be voluntary. He noted that only 10 law enforcement agencies in the country have “opted in” to the federal law that permits local jurisdictions to get involved. Four are in California, he said.

I’m tired of being accused of being racist. You don’t know me. I’m tired of L.A. becoming a third-world country. We worked too hard to have to see our neighborhoods, schools and hospitals in decline.

-- another e-mail this week

Carona suggested the primary thrust of his plan is to rid the county of serious felons who are here illegally.

“We’re not going after undocumented aliens on the street,” he said, adding that he also objects to racial profiling. To avoid that, he said, everyone who is booked into the jail is checked.

When an audience member asked about a bicyclist detained in Costa Mesa recently who later was found to be here illegally, Carona said, “We don’t arrest people for riding bicycles.”

When you are illegally in this country you are breaking the law. It doesn’t matter that you are a good person just trying to steal a living from someone who is in the country legally.

-- another e-mail this week

The evening wrapped up after a couple hours. Carona and Polisar clearly laid out their contrasting feelings about street police enforcing federal laws. The atmosphere was congenial, relaxed and even-keeled.

It wasn’t a night designed to discuss the anger that wells up in so many people.

And if it had been, how to address that anger? How to talk in the parlance that large segments of the public uses? More vexing, could anyone speak effectively to a country with so many shades of opinion on such a heartfelt issue?

The fact is, the illegals are ruining this country and you and your bleeding heart liberals are helping them. We’re being invaded by Mexico and you are aiding the enemy. Tell me, do you fly the Mexican flag in front of your house? Did you join the march in May of last year carrying the flag of Mexico?

-- another e-mail this week

Polisar and Carona chose not to talk in dire terms, except for Polisar’s passing reference to the country’s infrastructure being affected by illegal immigration and Carona’s invoking the specter of the criminal element in the illegal immigrant population.

It would be nice if the entire scope of the immigration question could be discussed with the level of gentility and calm they brought to the podium.

We just know it can’t.

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Dana Parsons’ column appears Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. He can be reached at (714) 966-7821 or at

dana.parsons@latimes.com. An archive of his recent columns is at www.latimes.com/parsons.