Newark Slayings Stoke Immigration Debate

Another suspect, Melvin Jovel, 18, from Honduras, was also in the country illegally.

Municipal Council member Ronald Rice was among the first to call for clear reporting requirements for illegal immigrants arrested on serious charges. But he now says he has been astonished to see others take up this call, which he meant as a "trial balloon."

"I want to actually help," he said. "Others have come into our town to try to use these gruesome murders for their own political ends. And I resent it."

The killings have made Newark another front in the immigration battlefields.

In nearby Morristown, the mayor is seeking to get the local police deputized to enforce immigration laws. Across the country, some 34 states have introduced laws that would deny bail to people suspected of being undocumented and increase funding for local enforcement of immigration laws.

All the suspects in the Newark killings are Latinos and all four victims are African American. Yet people here say the killings were so singularly brutal they transcend generalizations about immigrants.

The most pressing problem here is crime, not immigration, said nearly two dozen residents of the neighborhoods where the killers and the victims lived. They talk about car theft, gunfights and changing T-shirts to avoid gang colors.

"We know it's not safe for us," said Joshua Baker, 17, a neighbor of the Aeriels. "It's not an immigration issue."