Latinos are reporting fewer sexual assaults amid a climate of fear in immigrant communities, LAPD says
The Trump administration has made it a priority to enlist the assistance of state and local law enforcement in federal immigration enforcement. Concerns have been expressed that immigrant communities would be less likely to report crimes if the local police were believed to be part of the federal immigrant removal machinery. To facilitate trust by immigrants in local police, some cities have limited their cooperation with federal immigration authorities.
New reports from Los Angeles suggest that the fears may be real. Los Angeles Police Chief Charlie Beck said yesterday that reports of sexual assault and domestic violence made by the city’s Latino residents have plummeted this year amid concerns that immigrants unlawfully in the country could risk deportation by interacting with police or testifying in court. It does not appear that crime rates are down, however.
Beck said reports of sexual assault have dropped 25% among the city’s Latino population since the beginning of 2017 compared with the same period last year, adding that reports of domestic violence have fallen by 10%. Similar decreases were not seen in reports of those crimes by other ethnic groups.
“Imagine, a young woman, imagine your daughter, your sister, your mother … not reporting a sexual assault, because they are afraid that their family will be torn apart,” Beck said.
Beck’s comments — which drew criticism from immigration enforcement advocates — came during an event in East Los Angeles in which Mayor Eric Garcetti signed an executive directive expanding the LAPD’s policy of not stopping people solely to question them about their immigration status to three other city agencies: the Fire Department, Airport Police and Port Police. The LAPD stopped initiating contacts with people in order to determine their immigration status in 1979. In 2014, the city ceased honoring requests from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to hold people in custody for possible deportation.
KJ