EDITORIAL:

Nearly three years have passed since Costa Mesa roiled in controversy over plans proposed by the City Council majority in its broad swipe against illegal immigration.

A major component of the plan to deputize police officers into federal immigration agents pitted the city against its own police chief, documents show.

Those documents, connected to the case of the city v. activist Benito Acosta, resurrected some tensions that brewed under and above the surface back then.

Former Police Chief John Hensley, in a deposition conducted by Acosta’s ACLU lawyers, affirmed what many of us already knew: He told Eric Bever and Allan Mansoor he opposed efforts to use his officers as immigration agents.

Hensley worried that such a move would take his limited police resources away from more pressing criminal matters. He also feared that turning his police force into immigration officers would dismantle his community policing efforts, especially in the Westside of town, which has a burgeoning Latino population.

Not surprisingly, Mansoor and Bever disagreed. They had an agenda to pursue, and nothing was going to stop them.

In the end of the day, however, Bever and Mansoor didn’t prevail. Instead, federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents, otherwise known as ICE, were installed in city jails to monitor those arrested for crimes and to determine their immigration status.

To be sure, that program has been a success. Since its inception, 210 criminals have been sent packing to their country of origin. That’s a victory any way you slice it.

And while that wasn’t exactly the plan that the council majority envisioned, Bever and Mansoor deserve the credit for initiating the debate, however raucous it became.

Hensley’s counsel was most likely right. The proof is how quietly ICE continues to do its job daily. In addition, Chief Christopher Shawkey says the largely Latino Westside favors the ICE program, which takes criminals out of the community.

In retrospect, maybe the current majority needs to take advice a little better.

Perhaps it should listen to those who are experts in areas of gang enforcement and intervention, and just general policing, and put political agendas aside.

Just as citizens put their trust in the police department to make the right choices, the council would be wise to do the same.