Multnomah County's expanded role in illegal alien enforcement deserves more talk

Oregon police officers aren't supposed to use local money, equipment or manpower to look for or arrest people solely because they are suspected illegal immigrants.Yet under a new federal program, Portland Police and the Multnomah County Sheriff's Office have become more directly involved in identifying undocumented immigrants – and there's been almost no public conversation about whether that's appropriate.

The sheriff's office, which oversees the jails, has long cooperated with federal immigration agents. Everyone admitted to the Multnomah County Detention Center is asked where they were born. Deputies used to call or fax lists of new arrivals from other countries to the feds until the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement put its own computer in the jail.

A new federal program, called "Secure Communities," goes even further in ensuring quick identification of illegal immigrants: Now, when new inmates' fingerprints are run through state crime databases, they're also automatically and almost immedaitely forwarded to ICE.

"We're not doing their work," said Multnomah County Capt. Drew Brosh. "The only difference is that ICE gets information sooner."

This new collegiality has prompted concerns from Latino advocates, for good reason: The Oregon State Police agreed last December to participate in Secure Communities, now in 497 jurisdictions and headed everywhere by 2013. But there's no written agreement between Multnomah County and the federal government outlining how things work locally. County commissioners never discussed or debated the new effort.

Secure Communities targets what federal officials call "the worst of the worst," undocumented immigrants who've committed serious crimes such as murder or armed robbery. Yet of the 47,000 people deported under it between October 2008 and this past June, 26 percent had committed only one crime: entering the country without proper paperwork.

That number points to what critics fear – that the program encourages racial profiling, that officers will be more inclined to arrest someone who looks Latino for a minor offense rather than give a citation or a warning.

"Local law enforcement should work on community policing and building relationships," said Francisco Lopez, executive director of CAUSA Oregon, which works for immigrant rights. "They shouldn't be doing ICE's job."

At the very least, county and city leaders should have some public conversations about whether Secure Communities' mission meshes with Multnomah County's less aggressive, more sympathetic attitude toward illlegal immigrants.

"I don't think we ought to be moving towards Arizona-type policies," said County Chairman Jeff Cogen. "We have limited resources here. I want to focus our law enforcement on actual law enforcement."

The city's Human Relation Commission and the governor's Commission on Hispanic Affairs want the county to rethink its role. (They might want to ask the Portland City Council too, given that city employees do the actual fingerprinting and longstanding city policy bars Portland officers from assisting in immigration arrests.) Cogen wants more information about how the program works, but based on early talks with the sheriff doesn't think it violates state law limiting the role local officers can play in immigration cases. Brosh said the number of people facing possible deportation – at any given time, up to 10 percent of the county's 1,300-person jail population –hasn't jumped dramatically since the changes earlier this year.

Even if county and city leaders object, there may be nothing they can do. ICE's agreement is with the state, the clearinghouse for Oregon crime data. County commissioners approve Sheriff Dan Staton's budget, but he's an independently elected official. Though U.S. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano has said communities can opt out, San Francisco Sheriff Michael Hennessey asked to this summer and has not yet gotten his wish.

Like Cogen, I want more information, something the federal government has been achingly slow to provide. We refer to undocumented immigrants as "illegal" because that's exactly how they entered the United States.

Brosh said his boss is cooperating with Cogen's request for more detail now, but I wonder whether the sheriff's initial instinct to increase this data-sharing effort without public debate is entirely innocent. Maybe this is just a technological change, but it's one that will leave many of his constituents appalled.

http://www.oregonlive.com/news/oregonian/anna_griffin/index.ssf/2010/10/multnomah_countys_expanded_rol.html