The collaboration of the Los Angeles Police Department with the Immigration and Naturalization Service in the Latino communities should be halted immediately. Their joint operations are discriminatory measures that are damaging relations between Latinos and the Police Department.
For several months Latinos have protested Police Department harassment of day laborers at sites where immigrants and refugees gather to seek work. The Police Department maintains that it is enforcing anti-loitering laws and answering complaints from local residents and business persons that the presence of the day laborers blights their neighborhood.
The plight of immigrants and refugees in our country is largely an economic problem. It is not one of crime. The day laborers, for example, are mainly immigrants, most of whom did not qualify for the amnesty legalization program and who are trying to eke out survival without resorting to other methods. Our city government apparently recognized this dilemma and recently allocated funds to establish a pilot project to create and coordinate job pickup sites for day laborers. It was a wise and compassionate move. By assisting desperate workers trying to survive by working, the city discourages people from turning to crime as an alternative, defuses a divisive social problem and helps to promote harmony.
However, in a clear contradiction, the Police Department has been participating in joint raids with the INS at labor pickup sites.
On June 30, the department combined forces in a daylight "drug" raid of MacArthur and Lafayette parks, in the heart of the Salvadoran community.
The collaboration of the Police Department with INS is sowing Latino community anger and distrust against the department and city government. It is creating the fear that city-sponsored labor pickup sites may be traps for INS raids. The raids are inconsistent with the 1986 City Council resolution providing that the city will not report undocumented persons to the INS unless they have committed multiple misdemeanors or a serious felony.
The Police Department actions also violate the longstanding department policy not to use city funds to enforce federal immigration laws. The policy, like the 1986 resolution, was designed precisely to encourage undocumented immigrants and refugees to cooperate with law enforcement and other government agencies by reporting crimes and serving as witnesses.
