The Hidden Ways Police do Immigration Enforcement and Why We Should Care
On August 25, 2017, President Trump pardoned Joe Arpaio, a former Maricopa County sheriff who delighted in (illegally) enforcing American immigration laws. Arpaio routinely instructed his deputies to target Latinos for traffic and pedestrian stops, to detain them for longer than is allowed under the law, and to conduct work-site enforcement raids. After a series of lawsuits, Arpaio was ordered to end both practices. But these illegal practices still continued. Under his direction, sheriff’s deputies continued disproportionately targeting Latinos for traffic stops and detaining them on suspected immigration violations. The actions of the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office were extreme. Racial profiling is illegal. Police are not allowed to arrest people for being in the country without legal status because it is outside their authority. State and local law enforcement agencies may enforce state criminal laws, but being in the country without permission is a civil violation of federal immigration law.
In a very different pattern than Arpaio’s Maricopa County, many state and local law enforcement agencies have taken steps to emphatically reject any attempts at immigration enforcement conducted by their officers. These states and cities are often referred to as “sanctuaries”. For example, under Special Order 40, Los Angeles Police Department officers have been prohibited from asking residents about their immigration status since 1979. Some agencies and county jails also refuse to honor immigration detainers, which are requests from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to hold suspected undocumented immigrants until federal agents can assume custody. Local law enforcement agencies often do not want to get in the business of immigration enforcement because they want to protect their relationships with undocumented members of their communities. After all, police are responsible for protecting all residents in their jurisdictions and they rely on the public for information. Research demonstrates that residents are more willing to call the police for help, report crimes, and generally cooperate with authorities when they trust authorities and believe police procedures are fair.
While some law enforcement agencies reject immigration enforcement, I show in my new book, Protect, Serve, and Deport: The Rise of Policing as Immigration Enforcement, that many local law enforcement agencies indirectly participate in immigration control because they enforce laws and policies that disproportionately punish undocumented immigrants. For example, legal presence is a requirement for getting a driver’s license in thirty-eight U.S. states. For undocumented immigrants, this requirement eliminates the option to legally drive and it makes it impossible to identify oneself with state-issued identity documents. In Philadelphia, a city that is under attack by the President and Attorney General for its policy of not honoring immigration detainers, undocumented immigrants face stiff punishments for driving without a license. Vehicle impoundments, tickets, and fines cost undocumented immigrants between $500-$1,000 per offense.
In some places, the consequences of driving without a license are even more severe. Between 2008 and 2010, I did research in Nashville, Tennessee, including interviews and ride-alongs with local law enforcement agencies. At the time, the Davidson County Sheriff’s Office (DSCO) was participating in a federally authorized immigration enforcement program called 287(g), which allowed sheriff’s deputies to act as immigration officers. As a result, deputies conducted interviews and immigration status checks of every foreign-born arrestee delivered to their custody.
While Nashville police officers did not technically enforce immigration laws, they arrested staggering numbers of undocumented immigrants for minor violations such as loitering, driving without a license, and in some cases, fishing without a license. This happened because local police came across noncitizens who could not show officers a valid-state issued driver’s license. In many cases, officers decided to arrest noncitizens because they could not “identify” them, even when residents provided alternate forms of identification including passports, driver’s licenses issued in their countries of origin, or consular identification cards. During the 287(g) program’s tenure, between 2008 and 2012, the Sheriff’s Office identified over 11,000 immigrants for removal. These removals would have been impossible without the help of local police, who delivered large numbers of immigrants into county custody where they could be identified for deportation, while technically enforcing only state laws.
Still, the Metropolitan Nashville Police Department (MNPD), and many departments who deliver immigrants into the deportation machinery do not recognize this as a problem. In fact, the MNPD has been nationally recognized for its El Protector program, which engages in Hispanic community outreach. However, as I argue in my book, because these outreach efforts occur alongside aggressive policing, the purported beneficiaries of these programs view them as insincere. I interviewed numerous Latino immigrants and immigrant advocates who believed that the department targeted Latino immigrants for vehicle enforcement and prioritized punishing immigrants for traffic violations over protecting them. For example, Esteban, a Mexican immigrant entrepreneur, explained his ambivalence about the department, “They invite us to all these El Protector meetings, but when there’s an armed robbery, they arrive half an hour, an hour, two hours later- or they simply don’t come. The police chief says it’s because they have too few officers, but if you or I committed a traffic infraction… they would stop us…. Why are there so many officers available for traffic violations, when it’s just traffic, but when there are real dangers to our businesses or our lives, they don’t appear?” Esteban’s statement suggests that when police departments encourage indiscriminate vehicle and pedestrian stops in hopes that officers might stumble upon a violation, they improve their stats at the cost of public trust.
In the absence of federal immigration reform, twelve states and the District of California have adopted laws that allow unauthorized immigrants to obtain state identification cards and/or driving privileges. These policies are important because they promote integration and public safety. In California, where undocumented immigrants have been eligible for driver’s licenses since 2015, researchers determined that this policy change has significantly reduced the number of hit-and-run accidents, making the roads safer for all Californians.
This presidential administration has increased its attacks on undocumented immigrant communities and is reviving efforts to allow local law enforcement agencies to enforce federal immigration laws. Many cities and states have vowed to defy these efforts. However, if states and cities are serious about being “sanctuaries” they must look inward and eliminate policies and practices which levy disproportionate punishment on immigrants and minority residents. Even when professional law enforcement agencies reject extreme policies, like the ones endorsed by Joe Arpaio in Maricopa County, they can still cause irreparable harm.
About the author
Amada Armenta is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of Pennsylvania, where she specializes in the areas of Race and Ethnicity, Immigration, and Crime and Justice. Amada earned a M.A. and Ph.D. in Sociology from UCLA, and a B.A. in Political Science from Rice University. She hails from the sunny town of El Centro and has lived and/or studied in Houston, Havana, San Diego, Los Angeles, Nashville, Ithaca, and Philadelphia. She loves traveling, sports, and Dodgers baseball.
