Tom, Nobody's ignoring the illegal immigration problem (most folks violating visa stays, by the way, are Canadian, but that's another story); we're just leaving it to the folks who are trained to do it---the INS (which is called something else now; bear with me). Every candidate for police chief in St. Paul, anyway, endorsed the Separation Ordinance because, as articulated best by current Chief Harrington (whose profession is keeping St. Paulites safe): --NYC and LA tried combining INS functions with the local police force, and it resulted in an increase in complaints about racial profiling, and a degradation of the local police forces' relationship with immigrant communities, --It's not an effective method of identifying terror suspects. Combining INS and local policing functions did not result in better investigation, and --Local police simply have their hands full, and are not trained to implement INS laws. Combining INS functions with local policing is bad practice, and leads to an increase of complaints against the force. Moreover, as I understand it, the Ordinance is really just formal codification of St. Paul Police practices of not asking immigration status when answering to housecalls. Why? Because a woman who's afraid of being deported will not call the police with INS functions if her husband is abusive. Because an undocumented immigrant will not call the fire department if there's a fire for fear of deportation. For local policing, the INS/City Separation ordinance is just good policy. Tom, your comment about police chiefs coming out for something because it's politically expedient has some pretty significant ramifications for public safety. Are you willing to defend those, too? Certainly the Governor's advocacy of rescinding the measures is even more vulnerable to criticism of political motivation (though the Governor's office lacks the credibility of being responsible for the day to day enforcement of law and upholding of public safety in Minneapolis or St. Paul). When it comes to local law enforcement, I'll take the word of the city chief of police over the governor, anyway. I think the Governor's safety objectives would be better served by staving off those in his own party who would cut LGA funding, which affects how many officers and firefighters are on the street, instead of micromanaging City Council decisions, but that's just me. Erin Stojan Dayton's Bluff Ward 7
Tom & Elsa Thompson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: I have a hard time with this philosophy of ignoring the illegal immigration problem. First; Law Enforcement officers are sworn to uphold all local, state and federal laws. That does not mean only the laws we feel are "just". That means law enforcement officers have to uphold all laws. Having a city council or police chief who thumbs his/her nose at a law because they disagree with it, and ordering the police powers of the city to ignore that law is just plain wrong. There are gray areas of officer discretion in the law, however, a mandate from the city council or police chief ordering a complete ignoring of a law does not fall in the gray area in my opinion. To have civil liberties, I was always taught, one had to be a citizen, or at least a legal guest. When someone is in our city illegally, they are not "the most vulnerable among us", they are here illegally. There are legal channels to follow to come to this country. For those opting out of those channels, they are not only undocumented aliens, they are here illegally. Of course police chiefs with mainly (all) democratic councils are not going to support many things that go against the council. They are political appointees. So to have the police chiefs on record as supporting something that the council has issued an ordinance on shouldn't be taken as more than it really is. Tom Thompson Como Park Original Message: "In my opinion, what we should be much more afraid for are policies that strip us of our civil liberties and target the most vulnerable among us--as Governor Pawlenty is trying to do by pressuring the St. Paul City Council to rescind its INS/City Separation Ordinance--in the name of security. Both Chief Finney and Minneapolis Police Chief Wm. McManus are on record as supporting the INS Separation Ordinance; it seems, then, that the ordinance doesn't have much to do with actual security and much more to do with election year politics. Hopefully, we would apply the same degree of scrutiny to measures proposed on the city, state and federal levels designed to keep us safe---at the expense of the very freedoms we seek to protect." _____________________________________________ To Join: St. Paul Issues Forum Rules Discussion Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] _____________________________________________ NEW ADDRESS FOR LIST: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To subscribe, modify subscription, or get your password - visit: http://www.mnforum.org/mailman/listinfo/stpaul Archive Address: http://www.mnforum.org/mailman/private/stpaul/ ------------------------------------------------------- **VOTE TUESDAY, NOV. 2!** To register: Contact your county election office, or the Secretary of State at http://www.sos.state.mn.us/ General info: http://www.e-democracy.org "In the End, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends." -Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. (1929-1968) ------------------------------------------ Erin Stojan Dayton's Bluff, Ward 7 --------------------------------- Do you Yahoo!? Shop for Back-to-School deals on Yahoo! Shopping. _____________________________________________ To Join: St. Paul Issues Forum Rules Discussion Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] _____________________________________________ NEW ADDRESS FOR LIST: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To subscribe, modify subscription, or get your password - visit: http://www.mnforum.org/mailman/listinfo/stpaul Archive Address: http://www.mnforum.org/mailman/private/stpaul/
