The murder of Detective Donald Young has fueled a heated discourse on whether Denver police provide a safe haven, or “sanctuary,” for illegal immigrants. The suspect is a Mexican national who was stopped by local police in three traffic incidents, but never detained or deported.
Anti-immigration hotheads – led by local U.S. Rep. Tom Tancredo – say the city is providing sanctuary to illegal immigrants. It’s a laughable accusation. After all, what jurisdiction does not?
For example, there is Littleton, in Tancredo’s district. Police Lt. Doug Parker says that if illegal immigrants who are stopped on traffic violations aren’t facing criminal charges, “we just advise them that they need to speak to the immigration (people) and kick them loose.” He points out that the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) won’t lift a finger unless there are felony charges.
Tancredo also represents pieces of Arapahoe, Douglas, Elbert and Jefferson counties.
In Arapahoe, officials normally don’t contact ICE on routine traffic violations, according to Sheriff Grayson Robinson. In Douglas, Lt. Alan Stanton said only those taken into custody are referred to ICE. “When we come across an illegal, we notify ICE,” said Elbert County Sheriff Bill Frangis. “And they say, ‘Thanks for calling. We’re not doing anything.”‘
The Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office will contact ICE for instructions, with usual results. “They may end up in jail or go on their way,” said Lt. Jim Shires.
There are about 11 million illegal immigrants in the U.S., and the anonymity of large urban areas and the vastness of rural areas makes most of the United States a sanctuary, de facto as the lawyers like to say. Some cities, like San Francisco, have passed sanctuary laws; others simply don’t let local police play immigration cop.
One aim of sanctuary policies is to encourage illegal immigrants who are crime victims to come forward and testify without fear of deportation. And, big-city police already have their hands full fighting crime.
The suspect in Young’s murder, Raul Garcia-Gomez, a dishwasher at a restaurant partly owned by Mayor John Hickenlooper, had three traffic contacts with Denver police. After the killing, Tancredo fumed it was “unconscionable” that Garcia-Gomez “was let off scot-free” and criticized “Denver’s failed and illegal sanctuary policy.” Denver officers can’t possibly verify the federal immigration status of the thousands of drivers ticketed each year. Anyway, who’d take custody?
Tancredo cited Mayor Wellington Webb’s 1998 Executive Order 116 to provide services to all residents and Order 119 authorizing acceptance of Mexican matricula consular identity cards. City Attorney Cole Finegan says that 116 was meant to prevent discriminating against legal immigrants. “There’s no executive order, no ordinance, no regulation in the city of Denver that establishes a sanctuary policy,” Finegan said.
ICE doesn’t have the bodies to bust everyone. The agency’s focus is on immigrants arrested for serious felonies, businesses that hire illegal immigrants, smuggling groups, document-forgers and money-launderers.
Police Chief W. Garrett Chamberlain of New Ipswich, N.H. (pop. 4,289), found that out the hard way when the feds refused to even question a vanload of undocumented immigrants. When he happened upon one Jose Mora Ramirez, who allegedly admitted being in the country illegally, Chamberlain charged him with trespass, a local infraction that carries a stiff fine but no jail time. Immigration activists are watching to see if that approach is valid or just melodramatic.
Rather than local showboating, it’s clear the U.S. needs to develop a rational immigration and guest-worker policy, verifiable immigrant identification, and realistic penalties for those who chronically employ illegal immigrants. That could well render the vagueries of “sanctuary” a non-issue.
