Police chiefs to AG Holder: The Arizona Immigration bill will INCREASE crime

[Bluebear]

WASHINGTON – Arizona's new immigration law and similar proposals in other states would lead to an increase in crime, some police chiefs from around the country told Attorney General Eric Holder in an hourlong meeting Wednesday.

The chiefs told the attorney general that having to determine whether a person is in the United States illegally will break down the trust that police have built in communities and will divert law enforcement resources away from fighting crime.

If that happens, "we will be unable to do our jobs," said Los Angeles Police Chief Charlie Beck. "Laws like this will actually increase crime, not decrease crime."

Tucson Police Chief Roberto Villasenor said the requirements of the new law are so burdensome that "we doubt the federal government can even handle the numbers of people we will bring to them" on immigration status.

The new law "puts Arizona law enforcement right in the middle" at a time when police budgets are already in crisis, said John Harris, president of the Arizona Association of Chiefs of Police. On Monday, the FBI reported that both violent crime and property crime dropped dramatically last year, a trend the police chiefs said could be imperiled if immigration is added to law enforcement's responsibilities...

The chiefs, who spoke to reporters after the hourlong meeting with Holder, said the subject of filing a lawsuit never came up.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100526/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/us_immigration_holder

[pinto]

1. Good points in this debate / discussion.

The chiefs told the attorney general that having to determine whether a person is in the United States illegally will break down the trust that police have built in communities and will divert law enforcement resources away from fighting crime.

If that happens, "we will be unable to do our jobs," said Los Angeles Police Chief Charlie Beck. "Laws like this will actually increase crime, not decrease crime."

[EFerrari]

2. That's what our sheriff said out here in San Jose, too.

We have a big Latino community. If that community stops working with the PD, everything will cease. lol

[xchrom]

3. I thought places where everybody totes a six gun

Didn't have any crime?

[Sebastian Doyle]

4. Except for that dumbass Klansman in Maricopa county, of course

Bologna Joe has ALWAYS thought singling out "foreign lookin' brown peeple" was part of his job.

[Bluebear]

5. nodding