City’s immigration policy is misguided

I commend Costa Mesa Mayor Allan Mansoor for having the guts to propose training Costa Mesa police officers to enforce federal immigration laws, but I am convinced that the proposal will be counterproductive.

I am also convinced that whatever effect it may have on law enforcement will be tremendously outweighed by the negative effect it has on our community because of the perceived symbolism it creates.

Mansoor claims that our immigrant community should embrace the proposal because it will make our streets safer. At the City Council meeting this month, it was clear that the proposal is not embraced by either people describing themselves as recent immigrants or people describing themselves as long-time residents. The proposal was criticized not only by representatives of the ACLU and LULAC, but also by Costa Mesa’s former police chief and the president of the Costa Mesa Chamber of Commerce.

Mansoor says he believes this type of enforcement will make the city safer, but he has failed to give a cogent explanation for how that will be so. And he didn’t even ask Costa Mesa’s police chief, John Hensley, the most pertinent questions that might shed light on the issue. Since he didn’t seem to want to ask these questions, I will. I hope the chief will feel free to answer them forthrightly:

* If the City Council were to offer to increase the police department’s budget by $200,000 to $500,000 per year, is this the way you would recommend the money be spent?

* Do you think this proposal will damage the working relationship your officers have built with the Latino community?

* Will this training help your officers catch criminals or prevent crime? If so, by what mechanism?

The best answer that the mayor seems to be able to offer is that tossing out undocumented immigrants suspected of crimes will leave fewer criminals on the street. One of the main problems with the proposal is that it doesn’t target people convicted of serious crimes, it just targets people arrested for or suspected of serious crimes. Mansoor seems to have forgotten a fundamental tenant of our criminal justice system -- that people are presumed innocent until proven guilty.

Imagine police get a call reporting an armed robbery by a single person. Under the proposal, nothing is to stop police from arresting a dozen people suspected of the crime, and investigating the immigration status of all of them. Nothing is to stop the police from referring all of them to federal immigration officials if their immigration papers are not up to snuff, even though the crime was committed by only one, or maybe even none, of them.

Training for custody officers in the county system, as proposed by City Councilman Gary Monahan, might make some rational sense because the county jail holds people convicted of crimes, not just those suspected of crimes. It makes some sense for county custody officers to investigate the immigration status of convicted criminals and report suspected immigration violators to federal officials. This would pose little if any danger of rounding people up on the pretext that they committed a crime, just so they can be investigated for immigration violations. Incidentally, federal law calls for even legal immigrants, those on temporary visas or even permanent resident status, to be deported if they are convicted of certain types of crimes, so the county initiative can be aimed at a narrower segment of the population, those convicted of crimes, and a broader segment of the population, any noncitizens, at the same time.

Given the lack of enforcement of our immigration laws at the border, one might still question whether even a county initiative will have more than a negligible effect, but the cost would be much lower (fewer transportation issues, the immigration violators can serve their time until the federal government gets around to deporting them), and with far fewer associated problems, such as the symbolic damage that Mansoor’s proposal would create.

In his commentary in the Daily Pilot on Dec. 1. Mansoor asks “Where is the help when people commit crimes and then flee to Mexico?”

Can he explain how his initiative will help with criminals who flee to Mexico after they’ve committed crimes in Costa Mesa? Are we somehow better off if we have federal officials drive them across the border instead of them driving themselves across?

In his commentary, Mansoor also asked if there is any evidence that his proposal would destroy any working relationship police officers have with Costa Mesa’s Latino community? Can he really be so blinded by his own agenda and biases that he doesn’t see how his proposal is perceived by the Latino community?

Just as an example of why people might perceive him as biased, he made a point of asking for help with people fleeing to Mexico after committing a crime but not about people fleeing to Canada. He made a point of calling attention to the tragedy of the shooting of Jose Raul Pena’s daughter as a reason for supporting his proposal. Why not countless other examples of immigrants from around the world who have committed crimes in the U.S. and then been properly deported, never to have returned?

Can Mansoor really believe that immigrants, with or without proper papers, are going to be as willing to come to the police station to report crimes if his proposal is implemented. Does he really believe that immigrants will be as willing to talk with a beat cop about what they know about a crime committed in their neighborhood when they believe that any police officer they might talk with is also an immigration officer who could turn them over to the federal government, simply because they may be suspected of some other crime?

The mayor needs to be aware that the effect of his proposal is as much driven by the public perception of the proposal as it is by the reality of your proposal.

Though he says he has no intention of having Costa Mesa police officers run immigration sweeps, nothing in the resolution he championed and voted for prohibits such sweeps. Although Monahan read into the record the limits the county intends to place on the implementation of its immigration program, none of those limitations were included in the resolution passed.

Is it any wonder that the public perception of Mansoor’s proposal is quite negative in the Latino community?

At the City Council meeting this month, Mansoor said that people who spoke against his proposal were putting the wrong “spin” on it. I suggest that he has failed to be straight about what is motivating the proposal.

I’ll accept, for the sake of argument, that he is genuine, although misguided, in his belief that his proposal will be good for the city. But in light of the rhetoric he and his supporters use, and in light of the other policies he and his supporters have pushed over the years -- elimination of the Job Center being one of the most glaring examples -- how can he ignore the incendiary spin he has already put on the proposal?

In the end, Mansoor’s proposal is all about spin and symbolism.

He and his supporters believe that the immigrants among us detract from our community. He and his supporters want to send as many of them back where they came from as they can manage.

I believe that the immigrants among us are a valuable part of our community. I am not in favor of crime -- immigration violations, or any other kind of crime. But I believe the federal government must be primarily responsible for enforcement of the immigration laws, and local police should be responsible for making our community safe. I believe Mansoor’s proposal will detract from the job we need our local police to do and will have little or no effect on overall enforcement of federal immigration law.

His proposal is bad fiscally, bad for law enforcement, bad for community cohesion and bad for quality of life in our city. Wake up to this reality now, or face the consequences in November.

CHRIS BLANK

Costa Mesa