Immigration News from Massachusetts

Governor Deval Patrick has announced a plan to train a dozen correction officers in two state prisons to enforce immigration laws and rescinded a controversial agreement between Governor Mitt Romney and federal authorities that allowed State Police to arrest illegal immigrants. The specially trained correction officers would have the power to initiate deportation proceedings against convicted criminals whom they identify as illegal immigrants after being processed at two Massachusetts prisons. The officers would also notify federal authorities. “It has worked in other states,” Patrick said. He added that his actions “balance our responsibility to ensure public safety and to address illegal immigration.” Other jurisdictions where correction officers have such power include the Arizona prison system and several county jails in California. Following through on a recent promise, Patrick said he had scrapped a pact that Romney signed with US Immigration and Customs Enforcement to train 30 troopers to arrest suspected illegal immigrants. That plan, Patrick said, would have taken troopers from their core duties, including combating violence, drug abuse, and gun trafficking.   For more on this story, click here.

Beyond Borders Blog (here) refers to Governor Patrick’s decision as the “Massachusetts Compromise.”  Govenor Patrick’s decision not to follow Mitt Romney’s decision to train state troopers to enforce the immigration laws makes sense.  Many police chiefs oppose any involvement in immigration enforcement because of the possibility that immigrant crime witnesses and victims will not go to police if police may arrest them for immigration violations. This is, for example, why the Los Angeles Polce Department long has had an official policy of not inquiring into the immigration status of residents that officers ran across in ordinary police work. However, it is unclear why state correction officers should become involved in the initiation of federal deportation proceedings. Why not just allow state officials to work more closely with federal immigration officials (as they have in recent years)? Would a bit of training really be sufficient to teach state officials the nuances of the federal immigration laws (which not infrequently cause difficulty to federal officials, at least according to the federal courts that regularly reverse the decisions of the immigration bureaucracy)?

In any event, Governor Patrick seems to be following the “balanced” approach to immigration that President Clinton, under whom Patrick served in the U.S. Department of Justice. Immigrants did not fare too well under such an approach, with the immigration reform laws and welfare reform of 1996 as well as border enforcement operations such as Operation Gatekeeper (which has caused thousands of death), exemplfying this fact.   Nor has the need for immigration reform abated.  Perhaps it is time to think about new approaches and new solutions.

KJ