Los Angeles Daily News

Is L.A. soft on illegals?
Gates-era rule directs cops to ignore immigration status

By James Nash
Staff Writer

Saturday, November 15, 2003 -

The two men who allegedly shot and killed Ruben Rizo outside his Canoga Park home last year were in the United States illegally, and Rizo's widow says their presence was another sign of Los Angeles' flawed approach to dealing with immigrant criminals.

"They should deport them back to their country," said Araceli Perez, 26, whose husband -- the father of the couple's two children -- was shot to death Nov. 11, 2002, by two alleged gang members.

"(Police) are not doing the right thing," Perez said. "(Illegal immigrants) have already committed a crime by being here."

In this era of heightened concern over foreign terrorists on U.S. soil, a clamor is growing among some in Los Angeles -- including Perez, a group of San Fernando Valley activists and Northwest Valley Councilman Greig Smith -- for the Los Angeles Police Department to revisit its nearly 25-year-old policy of not dealing with immigration violations.

But city officials are treading lightly on the politically sensitive topic, noting Los Angeles' large and growing immigrant population.

"Immigration is a federal issue, a federal responsibility," said Los Angeles Councilman Dennis Zine, a former LAPD traffic sergeant. "We're aggressively pursuing the criminal element in the city of Los Angeles, but we don't have sweeps, we don't stop people just to determine their (immigration) documentation."

In response to reports that LAPD officers were routinely singling out immigrants for scrutiny, then-Police Chief Daryl Gates ordered officers to stop asking suspects, witnesses and victims about their immigration status. The policy, known as Special Order 40, has remained in effect for two decades.

Current Police Chief William Bratton and members of the city's Police Commission have not called for the policy to be amended or repealed.

"There are safety mechanisms in place for deporting people who are criminally inclined," said Police Commission President David S. Cunningham III. "In the end, the policy position on Special Order 40 is that we are a nation of immigrants and we don't want to dissuade them from having contact with the police."

Last year, Florida state police were given the power to enforce immigration laws, sparking an outcry from immigrant-rights and civil-liberties groups there. Florida state police officials stressed that their new powers would be used to root out potential terrorists, not to conduct immigration sweeps.

Preventing Los Angeles officers from inquiring about immigration status leaves the city vulnerable to terrorism, say some opponents of Special Order 40. But more to the point, they say, the policy leaves the city vulnerable to more garden-variety crimes committed by people in the country illegally.

"It is depriving police of their most effective tool for law enforcement," said Hal Netkin, a Van Nuys anti-immigration activist who uses a personal computer to send about 2,000 telephone voice-mail messages a day to West Valley residents urging a repeal of Special Order 40.

"It's certainly constitutional to determine what their immigration status is and turn them over to (U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement). You don't have to enforce anything. You just turn them over."

During his campaign to represent the Northwest Valley on the Los Angeles City Council early this year, Smith -- a reserve police officer -- said he favors amending or repealing Special Order 40.

But Smith has not pushed to revisit the issue. His chief of staff, Mitchell Englander, noted that most other City Council members want to leave the policy in place.

"Should the consensus change on the council, (revising the policy) is something that absolutely could be considered," Englander said.

City and police officials said illegal immigrants are dealt with before they are released from jail.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers stationed in the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department's Twin Towers Correctional Facility check the immigration status of inmates and decide whether to deport them when their term is finished, jail Lt. Tim Murphy said.

A Sheriff's Department study in 2000 estimated that 23 percent of the county's jail population was undocumented immigrants, accounting for about $150 million in annual costs. The department has not done a more recent study, nor does it regularly track the immigration status of inmates, officials said.

About 13 percent of the state prison system's 162,640 inmates have problems with their immigration status, according to the state Department of Corrections.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokeswoman Virginia Kice said Special Order 40 doesn't preclude federal immigration authorities from working with the LAPD on terrorism and violent-crime cases.

While the LAPD is not in the business of referring routine criminals to federal immigration authorities, the city and federal authorities work closely on cases involving potential terrorists in the country illegally, Kice said.

The Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks "make us more aware of other threats we need to be cognizant of," Kice said. "It led people to become more aware that the integrity of our immigration system was a very important part of our nation's safety."

The terrorist attacks underscored fears of foreigners plotting against the United States from within, even though all 19 hijackers entered the country legally. Seventeen of them still had valid visas on Sept. 11.