If good sense can’t prevail in the federal issue of illegal immigration, at least common sense here in Colorado will keep bad political decisions at bay.
Colorado is waiting for Gov. John Hickenlooper to sign a state bill passed last week that will repeal a 2006 law requiring police to report people they suspect are illegal immigrants. It was an illogical and bad political move that really never saw enforcement.
This week, state lawmakers are taking up a measure that would issue a type of driver’s license to international “visitors” to help ensure they have real driving skills and real auto insurance.
Police in Aurora have worked hard to ensure that the city’s large illegal immigrant community understands that police are here to uphold the law and help everyone, no matter what their residency status is. They realized that having state officials make police de facto immigration officers would push a new class of crime victims into the dark and create a dangerous situation for all of Colorado.
If the outgoing law were actually implemented, illegal and even legal Hispanic immigrants would avoid police at all costs if cops are a hot line to Immigration and Customs Enforcement squads — meaning they won’t call the cops when they know about a crime or even if they’re victims of a crime. It won’t take long before criminals figure this out and start targeting Hispanics for robberies and rapes, knowing that most won’t dare to call police for fear of being deported. But just as important, immigrants will start living underground lives, minimizing their contact with the rest of the community. An illegal immigrant involved in even a minor traffic accident would likely run from the scene, rather than take a chance of being deported.
Despite that logic, Colorado joined the so-called Secure Communities program, alerting police to the likelihood of an illegal immigrant. In reality, it almost never happened.
The database itself is run by the federal government, but it’s far from being a national, comprehensive pool of information. There is no national service that allows police, or anyone, to test nationality. Instead, there are myriad centralized records that contain some information about some U.S. citizens. There are passport records, driver’s license records, tax records, Social Security records and more. But almost all of those are off-limits to even the cops.
State and federal lawmakers have gone to great lengths to ensure that there is no centralized identification system in the United States, fearing “Big Brother” as well as the well-documented malfeasance of big government. Colorado has long been a leader in allowing state residents to shield information from the government and everyone else.
To ensure that any ICE program does not lead to treating state residents unfairly, it’s vital that police run everyone’s name through the system when stopping the public for traffic infractions or more serious crimes, rather than just those with dark skin, Mexican accents and Spanish surnames. Also, these databases are often given to lapses and other troubles, adding time to police stops, especially those involving those with heavy accents.
The repeal begs for Hickenlooper’s signature.
Likewise, any program that ushers unlicensed and uninsured drivers into the system only serves to benefit all of us. This and similar measures don’t make immigration policy, but they do help Colorado live with the nation’s ineffective and broken immigration laws. These measure realistically address the fact that millions of illegal immigrants are here, and they’re here to stay. Allowing them to drive unlicensed and uninsured only compounds bad federal decisions, and it’s individual, law-abiding drivers who have to pay the price.