Phoenix mayor shifts on police officers asking for immigration status

[muntrv]

By RANDAL C. ARCHIBOLD
Published: December 4, 2007
LOS ANGELES, Dec. 3 — Under pressure from advocates for stricter immigration laws, the mayor of Phoenix said on Monday that he no longer backed a Police Department order barring officers from routinely asking the immigration status of people it arrested and announced a panel to study a policy change.

A spokesman for Mayor Phil Gordon, Scott Phelps, said the policy was “written for another time” on the belief that the federal government “would fulfill all of its immigration responsibilities, and clearly that has changed.”

But Mr. Gordon, a Democrat, announced the change at a time when sentiment against illegal immigrants has intensified in Phoenix after the shooting death two months ago of a police officer, Nick Erfle, by an illegal immigrant. There have also been weekly protests at a furniture store whose owners have pressed the authorities to arrest day laborers who congregate there and who are believed to be in the country illegally.

Mr. Phelps cited both the clamor over the police officer’s shooting and the protests as changes that forced Mr. Gordon to change his position.

“It is getting ugly out there,” Mr. Phelps said, adding that the mayor wanted to cool tensions with a policy change many rank-and-file officers supported for a city, the nation’s fifth largest, 150 miles from the Mexican border.

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http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/04/us/04immig.html?_r=1&th&emc=th&oref=slogin

[proud2BlibKansan]

1. Cause we all know that illegal immigrants are the only ones who shoot police officers!