Con

“At first blush, the ability of local police to enforce federal immigration law seems like a viable solution to our nation’s challenge of illegal immigration. However, piling the additional duty of immigration enforcement upon our already strained local police will do little more than force illegal immigrants and those who associate with them further into society’s shadows. The negative effects which will result thereafter are significant.

First, enforcement of immigration laws by local police will discourage and even prevent undocumented immigrants from accessing police services and will prevent police from the benefit of immigrants’ cooperation in fighting and investigating crime… Furthermore, adding immigration enforcement to the gambit of local police duties will strain the resources of local police. The main mission of local police is to prevent and solve local crime. Requiring local police to pick up the slack of federal immigration agencies will only divert crime fighting resources without solving the problem of illegal immigration.

Perhaps most importantly, local police run the risk of violating the civil rights of both legal and illegal immigrants when enforcing immigration laws.”

Mar. 2008