Arizona immigration law will boost crime in U.S. cities, police chiefs say

[kpete]

Source: Washington Post


Arizona immigration law will boost crime in U.S. cities, police chiefs say

By Spencer S. Hsu
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, May 26, 2010; 6:06 AM

Arizona's new crackdown on illegal immigration will increase crime in U.S. cities, not reduce it, by driving a wedge between police and immigrant communities, police chiefs from several of the state's and the nation's largest cities said Tuesday.

The new Arizona law will intimidate crime victims and witnesses who are illegal immigrants and divert police from investigating more serious crimes, chiefs from Los Angeles, Houston and Philadelphia said. They will join their counterparts from Montgomery County, Md., and a half-dozen other U.S. cities in meeting Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. on Wednesday morning to discuss the measure.

"This is not a law that increases public safety. This is a bill that makes it much harder for us to do our jobs," Los Angeles Police Chief Charlie Beck said. "Crime will go up if this becomes law in Arizona or in any other state."







Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/05/26/AR2010052601200.html

[mynameiswhat]

1. Did a lot of illegals go talk to the police before?

[Renew Deal]

2. In NY they are permitted to report a crime without being arrested.

So yes.

[pampango]

3. Why does Fox choose to use loaded term "illegals"? (Media Matters for America)

http://mediamatters.org/research/201002050030

[Ed Barrow]

6. Because they always choose the term most likely to inspire rage and hatred

It's their official company policy.

[Luciferous]

7. Because they are here illegally?

:shrug:

[The Backlash Cometh]

4. If they felt they could trust individual police, avenues of communication

would be left open. Alienating people will only make it worse. Within a latino community you have bribones mixed in with honest families who just want to get through the day. These honest people could turn in a tip if they saw something amiss. But now they won't. They won't come to the police because they'll fear that they are the ones who will be retaliated against.

[EFerrari]

5. It's not only undocumented people who will not call the police.

It's also any Latino that doesn't want to be harassed or that has a mixed family or who has undocumented friends. That's a lot of people.

[howaboutme]

8. If you are here illegally then

go back home. If you are an employer hiring illegal immigrants for more profits, before Americans then you need criminally prosecuted.

That should be the view of every average American individual, unless the USA somehow gets 1% employment.

[EFerrari]

9. If every undocumented worker left today, thousands of communities all over this country would crash.

Arizona would probably crash as a whole.

You think unemployment is bad now? Wait until all that demand leaves the system.

[howaboutme]

10. Guess we have

a difference of opinion on which comes first, USA citizen employment, or economic demand. As long as US citizens are struggling to get by on unemployment insurance, or with lapsed insurance, our economy is not going to improve. I do not believe the US should be importing workers (legally or otherwise) when our own citizens can't find jobs.

[EFerrari]

11. Our welfare is tied up already with the people who are working here.

Every place that has passed a law like AZ just did, the whole community suffered from it. Because it wasn't only tradesmen and casual workers who left. It was also people who buy things in stores and who pay taxes and who need their cars fixed and so on.

[DeadEyeDyck]

12. They are here because we want them here

Face it. If they were not wanted here, they would not be here. We hire them to roof our houses, work in poultry plants and pick out crops. We like the cheap labor but bitch about them being here. What was that movie about the Prawns? District 5?