House signals support for requiring cops to confront immigration...

House signals support for requiring cops to confront immigration


By Jacques Billeaud
The Associated Press, March 20, 2008

Phoenix (AP) -- The Arizona House gave preliminary approval Wednesday to a proposed requirement that city and county police agencies carry out programs for their officers to confront federal immigration violations.

Local agencies could meet the requirement by getting training for their police and jail officers, putting federal immigration agents in units within their departments or cultivating relationships with federal authorities to confront the problem.

'It's one way of dealing with the immigration problem that lets the cities use the most efficient way that they have to do that,' said Republican Rep. John Nelson of Litchfield Park, author of the proposal.

A small number of local police agencies in Arizona have already sought special training to enforcement federal immigration law.

The training lets police officers make immigration arrests while carrying out their regular duties. It also allows jail officers speed up the deportations of criminal immigrants after they complete sentences on state violations, thus reducing local corrections costs and getting them in the hands of federal authorities quicker.

No lawmakers voiced opposition to the proposal.

The bill also would prohibit county and city governments from having policies that prevent or restrict them from receiving or exchanging information about people's immigration status in certain instances.

Those cases include determining the eligibility of people for public benefits that are off limits to illegal immigrants, confirming the identity of arrested people and verifying people's status if the status is required under law.

The proposal now moves to a formal vote in the House.



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