NY Times: The Laws Cops Can’t Enforce
This Op-Ed in the NY Times, hits the nail on the head. We owe it to our law enforcement officers to come up with a workable federal immigration policy that does not force police departments to succumb to political pressures to ‘reduce immigration by using racial profiling and harassment’.
Without a national immigration policy, a new culture of lawlessness will increasingly permeate our society. In cities, politicians will pressure police departments to reduce immigration by using racial profiling and harassment. At the same time, immigrants who fear that the police will help deport them will rely less on their local officers and instead give thugs control of their neighborhoods.
Many top law enforcement officials were part of the community policing revolution of the 1980s and ’90s. We have a deep concern for constitutional rights and social justice. We believe that effective policing requires residents, regardless of immigration status, to trust the police.
We are also students of the mistakes of our predecessors. Past police practices helped lead to the civil unrest of the 1960s, which tore our nation apart along racial and political lines. We do not want to repeat those mistakes.
…
America’s police officers deserve thoughtful federal leadership so that we can continue doing our best to provide our country with the security that defines a civilized society.
“politicians will pressure police departments to reduce immigration by usung racial profiling and harrasment.” Is it me, or does this sound familiar?
WP: In Prince William, A Spike in Home Sales
Note: I replaced the article with the link. This Washington Post article pretty much follows the same logic as the MJM article that we discussed two days ago. It’s very simple folks, the spike in sales is because the homes are at ‘bargain blowout’ prices, not something to really celebrate. I could sell my house tomorrow for $50,000 and the headline could read - “Another Home Sale in PWC” but come next budget cycle when every other home in my neighbor has lost value and the County needs to increase the tax rate because of it, that headline will read - ‘Spike in PWC Taxes/Further Cuts to Core Services’.
In addition to creating mistrust in the immigrant community and possibly a spike in unsolved crime as a result, a hodge-podge of laws across states and counties creates confusion. Does a person need to carry his/her passport if making a cross-country trip? Would a person feel unsafe driving to Best Buy in PWC - even though it’s closer - or should she take her money/tax dollars into Fairfax County?
You must be out of your mind. As the illegals start to settle in Fairfax, we’ll have plenty of people coming to shop here precisely because they feel safer in PWC.
Rick,
Don’t worry you’ll be safe once they are all legalized but won’t we look foolish in hindsight?
Alanna, thank you for posting this New York Times Op-Ed written by George Gascón, a former assistant chief in the Los Angeles Police Department, is a lawyer and the chief of the police department in Mesa, Ariz.
I beg everyone to read, not only the excerpts Alanna chose, but the entire devastating argument, coming from a man who knows community policing because he has actually been there.
Please do not filibuster by cutting and pasting off-topic newspaper articles. Even if you prefer your head in the sand 99 percent of the time, please pop it out just this once and read this article. If you are going to remain unapologetic for wasting millions of dollars of tax payer money trying to influence the way police officers do their jobs, you could at least educate yourself about the profession not that the damage is done.
Since I did the begging, I should also do the linking: please read the entire devastating argument.
I read this whole screed.
Now I know where the term ‘cop-out’ came from.
The violation of the Oath to protect and defend the Constitution should never be tolerated. If someone’s pension comes before the Constitution, those people have violated their Oath.
There is only one option for Police Officers who feel they are being placed into a position to violate the constitution.
Resign.
C’mon Mackie. Resign?
In this county, our police officers were never instructed to racially profile. The problem was the Duecaster Disaster made it seem as if that was the mandate, which made it inevitable we’d be sued as a county. This is not the officers’ fault.
Instead of resigning, how about seeing things through. How about respectfully guiding their elected officials to make better decisions, like the Police Department and the County Executive’s management team did in Prince William County?
Imagine if Chief Deane had abandoned us. Where would we be today?
Mackie, I’m beginning to wonder what your motives are on this blog. Law enforcement is not the bad guy. You know that as well as I do. Save your attacks for those who make the laws, not those who’s job it is to enforce them.
Sorry. Mackie, I should have said “aim” instead of “motive.” Motive makes it sound accusatory. Sorry.
Q: “Did you ever swear to the Civil Servant Loyalty oath of 1934?”
A: “Everyone did. It was mandatory.”
Q: “Didn’t you realize what it would have meant if You, and men like You would have refused to swear to the oath? It would have meant that Hitler could never have come to absolute power.”
A: “…”
Q: “Did your pension mean more to you than your country?”
A. “…”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oh1R_my-T0s
The resolution, as it was adjusted in the spring, is legal policy. There is not one pending suit nor any successful legal action against it. But that doesn’t make it good policy. It prohibits racial profiling but a part of the population feels under the spotlight.
What I took from the entire article is the fact that even if its legal policy, the ramifications from the part of society that feels threatened are not worth whatever perceived “results” there are from the resolution.
By the way, Virginia is a “right to work” State, no unions etc. and the local employees are not all considered as “civil servants” with the workplace protections that most people associate with the Federal government and “civil servants”.
For Mackie,
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=6gtH5D3RgoY&feature=PlayList&p=70C11D6BAD171FD5&index=9
Everyone else take caution, this is an episode of the imfamous UK cartoon series “Monkey Dust”
As the creator of it was slowly dying of Cancer, he had nothing to lose when it came to content…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monkey_Dust
Lucky Duck, thanks for your insight on the that op-ed piece. The reason why I see this argument as so decisive is that it obliterates the only perceived gain that is touted to offset all the losses we have endured because of this tragic Immigration Resolution.
It has not made us safer. It has made us less safe.
It has not made it easier to control gang activity. It has made it harder.
So why did some of our fellow residents want this catastrophe? As much as they celebrate it today, surely it was not so that we could be known as the socially backward, ugly step-child county of NoVA where you can find cut-throat rates for housing.
If you look at the big picture, we had a small group of activists motivated by rage and resentment over what boil down to neighborhood services issues. Partisan opportunists like Corey Stewart and the self-proclaimed anti-immigrant lobbying firm F.A.I.R. encouraged these 40 or so people to channel their rage and resentment into a movement to hijack our local government, and employ the police force as the perceived heavies necessary to rid their neighborhoods of people they assumed, rightly or wrongly, had the wrong documentation status and were therefor incapable of assimilating.
This tactic has deeply scarred our county’s reputation, severely damaged our economy, our housing market, and our tax base which depends largely on that housing market. And it has made us LESS SAFE by placing the police force in an impossible situation and getting in the way of their doing their jobs (see op-ed piece above).
The shameless partisans such as Greg Letiecq and Corey Stewart claim victory because this tiny minority of angry and misguided citizens has gotten what they wanted: a row of vacant and foreclosed upon houses where the perceived undocumented families had lived, and the hopes of seeing new neighbors buy those houses at a fraction of the price they themselves paid for them (whooopee). And, I suppose, they have reason to hope their new neighbors who have taken advantage of our county’s unparalleled housing market collapse will perhaps have proper papers, and perhaps not be as poor, and perhaps not be ethnic, and perhaps not have immigrated to this country recently.
But the rest of Prince William County has suffered tremendously for the perceived “benefit” of a select few.
My neighbors are the same folks they were a year ago, only now they are less wealthy, less safe, and have less reason to stay in this county.
I don’t have a single foreclosure on my street, nor anywhere in my neighborhood, but I have seen my police force misused and abused, I have seen my police chief attacked, I have seen my property value plummet, I have seen my children’s school budget slashed, I have seen the reputation of my county slandered, I have seen our prospects for an effective and solvent county government vanish, I have seen my taxes go up, and I have seen my local economy crippled.
What do I get in return for less brown faces at the bus stop?
i will agree with the argument posted in that op-ed piece. however I will also pose the following: most of the gangs here in NOVA are latino based gangs either similar or related to MS-13. Most of those gangs are composed of illegal immigrants. Remove the illegal immigrants and you pull people out of the same pool the gangs come from, thus reduce violent crime. cry all you want about the illegal immigrant who is a valedictorian of his/her class, sometimes you have to break an egg to make an omelet.
people, I’m at the court houses EVERY DAY and I see these affects. I’m in court rooms EVERY DAY and I see this. I’m not pulling this stuff out of my a&&, it’s real and it’s here. sit back in your armchairs and quarterback this but rest assured this world really is a nasty place and illegal immigrants play an awful big part in “our” little slice of the world.
If I’m not mistaken, Eric did ask Chief Deane if he ever considered resigning in protest. If I recall correctly, Chief Deane jokingly responded that if he had seen this coming he would have left before it all started.
elvis,
ever consider there’s a socio-economic factor at play here as well? like there was no crime before the hispanics arrived? and how do you explain the decreasing crime rate as the illegal population increased? what about the substation in Georgetown South? not needed anymore, why? couldn’t it just be that hispanics are now on the lowest rung of the socio-economic ladder and that’s the explanation?
elvis,
also, i’m thinking maybe you should hang out at the spanish mass on sunday afternoons at All Saints, just to offset your negative impressions from the courthouse.
Elvis, I am no expert on gangs, but if we do indeed have a reason to object to them OTHER than ugly spray paint on our bridges, I imagine it’s because they commit some serious crimes. Am I wrong?
If we can agree on this, do you really think that a guy who has muggings and burglaries under his belt is going to decide to skip town because he finds out he might also be deported for not having a drivers’ license? These are guys who don’t mind evading the long arm of the law. The Immigration Resolution makes it easier for them to get away with the crimes they were already committing … not harder.
Since you read the article I won’t go into it in detail, but you understand that when ethnic communities feel they cannot trust the police, they turn to gangs for protection and to settle disputes. This means they have yet another reason not to report crimes committed by gang members. This leads to good citizens getting pulled into the gangs and their power expanding.
That’s why I have to laugh (in a black comedy sort of way) when someone from Help Save Manassas complains about gang activity. HSM has “aided and abetted” gang activity more than any organization in the history of the Commonwealth.
Thanks for posting this article, Alanna. I’m finally understanding what Chief Deane was trying to warn us about way back when. If only the community had rallied behind him in 2007 as they did in 2008. We might not be in the economic and crime prevention hole we are in now.
Gangs are a problem. If you just step outside of Manasssas a little bit, you will see that gangs other than Latino gangs are just as troublesome. That gang issue isn’t new. It just depends on where you are.
Parent intervention is often quoted by the various gang task forces to be the single most important factor in prevention. I am all for locking up gang members. I don’t know anyone who thinks having gangs is a good idea.
Go back to the early 20th century America. There were Irish, Jewish, Sicilian, German gangs in urban areas. In the 50’s and 60’s Puerto Rican gangs were a big problem in the Northeast. Hell, there was even a musical about gangs: West Side Story. Gangs are a very common occurrence with immigrant groups. Let’s not act like PWC is the first area to ever deal with gangs. They have been in Manassas for at least 15 years. At least!
Rod,
Thanks for the vid. It was fascinating. I think I understood maybe half of it. I’ll be sure to watch more of Monkey Dust.
How many MWB members have had files opened on them? Have the leaders been identified? Are they being checked on periodically and having their movements tracked?
Is this still America?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0QvGBRdom0k
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sf4w1e9Nuo8&feature=related
Thanks Moon-howler for pointing out that gangs are not a new phenomenom. Gangs have been in existence practically since this country was founded. My greatgrandfather was the target of a gang back in the wild west sometime around the late 1800’s.
I have said all along when the resolution was passed that the area would be in for an increase in crime and and increase in gangs. The police need the immigrant community to report crimes, advise them of what’s going down and to testify in court. The legislation in Prince William County and in the City of Manassas only hampers those efforts. Immigrants of will be driven underground. No on will report, no one will be available to testify and the police will no longer be able to gather all the information they will need to either stop criminal activity or solve crimes. I have police officer friends who work in Arlington and I know other police officers who work in various locations doing gang related work. They have as much as said the same. You must know that these officers depend on the immigrant population to view them as friends and not foes.