By KAREN PARKER | County Line Editor
Any plan by Congress or the Trump administration to require local sheriff’s departments to enforce immigration laws would be met with little enthusiasm by either Monroe County Sheriff Scott Perkins or Vernon County Sheriff John Spears.
“I work for the taxpayers of Vernon County, not Washington,” Spears noted.
Those who would like to see tougher immigration enforcement might find that disappointing, but Spear’s attitude has plenty of support from Antonin Scalia, the late conservative Supreme Court Judge. Enforcing immigration law falls right into that murky ground the country has been battling over since it was formed: states’ rights versus federal power.
But recent acts of terrorism have brought the question into the public eye. The “D.C. Sniper,” the “Railway Killer” and the Sept. 11 attack on the World Trade Center were committed in part by immigrants who had been detained by state or local police. Had they enforced immigration law, those men might have been deported and they would not have been free to carry out their crimes.
In 2005, Sen. Jeff Sessions, now Donald Trump’s appointment as Attorney General, advocated conscripting local law enforcement to track down 86,000 criminal immigrants he alleged were in the country illegally. Doing so, he claimed, would add 700,000 pairs of eyes and ears to the enforcement of immigration laws.
The idea never gained traction with Congress in 2005, but the Trump administration already has expressed interest in bringing it back.
Despite its appeal, in practice the idea encounters obstacles. Local law enforcement officials argue that they simply do not have the resources to enforce the volumes of immigration law that exist without detracting from more serious threats to their communities. More importantly, there is a fear that turning local police into Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents will destroy the trust local police have with immigrants. How likely are they to share information on crime if thet know it could lead to deportation?
Perkins said his agency is alert to immigrants who have committed crimes and may be here illegally, and his department does contact ICE. What he does not do is hold people for immigration violations.
Perkins said he has held immigrants on minor violations, but admits he does not make any special effort to determine their status. Those who commit traffic violations need only valid licenses for identification, he said.
“A lot slip through our hands,” he admitted,
Although the county has had a substantial Hispanic population for decades, Perkins think it has been diminishing lately, with many families moving closer to jobs at Ashley Furniture in Arcadia.
Whatever local law enforcement may or may not want to do, the Supreme Court has its own view of the matter. Immigration laws are civil, not criminal laws, and it regards immigration as a function that has always been deemed a federal matter. States, as we know, are not allowed decide who may apply for citizenship.
In a 1997 case, Justice Scalia cautioned the court “to resist concentrating power in one location in response to the the crisis of the day.”
“Underthis rationale, the anti-commandeering doctrine should remain in full force, even during the war on terror, without exceptions for national emergencies that maymake state and local ‘enlistment’ a prudent policy decision,” noted the Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy.
For Spears, it is more basic.
“These people are our friends and neighbors. They spend their money locally and they send their kids to our schools.”
Spears thinks it has been years since he has had any problems with a Hispanic immigrant, although there is a substantial number in Ontario and the Hillsboro area, with a smattering across the rest of the county.
Until there is a problem, he is quite happy to leave things as they are.
“I would like to do the same job I have been doing for 33 years: keeping the people who live in Vernon County safe.”