Officer union calls for change in immigration rule

Group wants HPD to allow questioning about citizenship status

Houston’s largest police union, frustrated by the shootings of two officers by illegal immigrants, wants an end to the department’s 17-year-old policy of not questioning residents about their immigration status.

Such a change would put Houston at odds with the state’s five other major city police departments — Austin, El Paso, Fort Worth, Dallas and San Antonio.

Gary Blankinship, president of the Houston Police Officers Union, said the September 2006 murder of officer Rodney Johnson and the severe injuries suffered by officer Rick Salter on March 5 are reasons to toughen immigration enforcement, including an end to the policy. Both officers were shot by illegal immigrants who had been deported from Houston, but returned to commit other crimes.

“It’s a strong issue,” Blankinship said. “My guys get tired of dealing with the criminal aliens out here, and it seems like the severity of the crimes is escalating and that’s frustrating to the rank and file.”

He stressed that calls for a change in the policy are not aimed at a wholesale roundup of illegal immigrants in Houston, a population the Greater Houston Partnership estimated last year at 420,000 in the 10-county Houston metropolitan area. It would help officers to weed out dangerous criminals in the undocumented community, he said.

Frank Michel, a spokesman for Mayor Bill White, said the administration has no plans to change a policy it considers crucial to policing city neighborhoods.

“We need people to be confident in Houston police officers and have them step forward to report crime, and be willing to step forward as witnesses,” Michel said.

In the aftermath of the murder of officer Johnson, the Harris County Sheriff’s Office and Houston police received federal training so jailers can access immigration computer databases to identify immigration violators.

“What the mayor has said repeatedly is the police have to focus on what they do best, solving crimes and protecting our neighborhoods,” Michel said. “He also has asked that the federal agencies in charge of enforcing immigration law get more resources, so they can do their jobs.”

Few are prosecuted
Lawrence Rushton, a Houston immigration attorney, said the great majority of illegal immigrants are not prosecuted on federal criminal charges when they are detained away from the border area.

Although improper entry to the country is a federal misdemeanor offense punishable by a maximum six-month jail sentence and a $250 fine, in practice most cases result in civil deportation proceedings, he said.

Rushton and officials at other large Texas police departments said reversing policies that prohibit questioning of residents about their immigration status would decrease public safety by discouraging residents to report crimes.

They also said it could open up cities to charges of racial profiling if ethnic groups were singled out for scrutiny.

“I do a lot of work with battered spouses and children, and one of the hardest things is to convince them that Houston police will not arrest them, or deport them, if they come forward and report the crime,” Rushton said.

“If they change this policy, and even if they say they’re not going to arrest a woman who is the victim of domestic abuse, if they arrest her cousin for being here without papers, I’ll never convince them to come in to report this crime.”

Austin’s policy the same
Austin Police Department spokesman Cpl. Scott Perry said that city’s policy barring the questioning of residents’ immigration status heads off charges of racial profiling.

“It’s just so there’s never the appearance of any sort of discrimination … If you make those stops based on the appearance of people, that goes against everything the police stand for,” he said.

Houston Assistant Police Chief Dan Perales, said the necessity of combating crime in immigrant communities prompted the implementation of General Order 500-5 in 1992. That need has not changed, he said.

“We want to make sure that individuals do come forward to report crimes” without fear of arrest or deportation, Perales said.

In Fort Worth, Sgt. Pedro Criado said he learned as a patrol officer that immigrants frequently balked at telling police they witnessed a crime. “We want people to come forward and have trust in the police department.”

Blankinship said 1,433 of the 7,700 inmates processed through the Houston city jail in February identified themselves as noncitizens, although he does not know how many were illegal immigrants.

“I can’t help but believe a large number were in this country illegally,” he said. “If we had to put our hands on 1,433 fewer people a month, that would free up police for other tasks.”

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/front/6417743.html