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States, Counties Begin to Enforce Immigration Law
Members of the Mecklenburg County sheriff's office, including Deputy R.K. Myers, place more than 100 people a month into deportation proceedings.
(By Peter Whoriskey -- The Washington Post)
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"The law enforcement community is split on this issue," said Gene Voegtlin, legislative counsel for the International Association of Chiefs of Police. The local agencies against enforcing immigration law "are concerned about the chilling effect it will have on immigrants' cooperation with law enforcement," he said.
In Mecklenburg County, about 1,200 foreign-born people have been arrested since April, on charges ranging from traffic violations and trespassing to sex crimes, and nearly 600 have been found to be here illegally.
Among those snared earlier this month was Guadalupe Lara, an 18-year-old Mexican carpenter.
The fifth of eight children born to farmworkers in Queretaro, he walked across the border when he was 16 to find work. Two years later, he has only a wispy beard and stands 5-foot-3.
He makes $7.50 an hour and lives with four others in a small, sparsely furnished apartment. Though they lack beds, they have a television on which Lara watches his favorite telenovela, "Heridas de Amor." He sends money home monthly and calls home every week.
"It's difficult," he said in Spanish. "When I call they say 'How are you?' I say 'I am fine.' " On Monday night, Lara was pulled over by police after buying a pack of cigarettes. He was not drunk but had an open bottle of beer in the car. He also lacked a license. He was arrested and when asked admitted he had no papers.
Had he been detained elsewhere, his illegal status may not have mattered.
But in Mecklenburg, two sergeants and 10 deputies at the jail are trained to handle immigration infractions, running checks in databases and holding people in custody if necessary.
Some of those arrested face immediate deportation. Some are held on bond pending an immigration hearing. Lara was relatively lucky. Because he had no prior immigration or criminal charges, he was given a notice to appear before an immigration judge in Atlanta and released. He is likely to be ordered deported.
Lara says police now unfairly target Latinos. More than 90 percent of the illegal immigrants discovered in Mecklenburg are from Latin America.
"The police are just looking for problems with Hispanics," Lara said. "They know we don't have driver's licenses -- we can't get them -- and so they pull us over."
Liliana "La Chula" Ramos, a host on local Spanish radio, said: "A lot of people here are very afraid because they think the police will pull them over for anything. It's very difficult for people to get licenses now, and people have to go to work, so they're out there driving."
