Police toughening stand on illegal immigrants

When police in the small Southeast King County town of Pacific stopped Jose Luis Diaz for speeding in May, officers joked about a flier for an immigration rally on his front seat.

Up in Seattle they may tolerate that sort of thing, Diaz recalls the officers grousing, but not so down here.

Across the Puget Sound, local law-enforcement agencies use various approaches — from written and unwritten policies to individual officer discretion — when dealing with illegal immigrants.

On a routine traffic stop, the first clue to a motorist's immigration status may come when an officer runs a driver's license and gets all zeros in place of a Social Security number.

What they do after that depends largely on the jurisdiction.

Seattle police and King County deputies would likely just ignore it, operating as they do under an official policy of not asking a person's legal status.

But not so in tiny Pacific, where Latinos now represent 6 percent of the town's 6,000 or so residents and where illegal immigrants, like Diaz, are increasingly finding themselves in deportation proceedings following an encounter with local police.

Pacific Police Chief John Calkins says he has a duty to enforce the law. Period.

"I'm proud of my officers and the job they're doing," Calkins said. "I told them if there's a violation, whether federal, state, whatever, they're not to just turn their backs on it."

Growing trend, confusion

Nationwide, state and local law-enforcement agencies are grappling with this very thing — how to deal with a growing population of illegal immigrants and some of the potential local problems that arise, ranging from overcrowded housing to day-labor-site complaints.

There's a growing inclination among local police to take a tougher stand in the wake of well-publicized crimes by deportable immigrants — including a few in the Puget Sound region, such as Jonathan Rowan who fatally shot his former girlfriend at the University of Washington.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials report a marked increase in information relayed to them by local law enforcement.

"There's a lot of confusion about what the appropriate role for state and local law enforcement is, what their actual authority is," said Gene Voegtlin, legislative counsel for the International Association of Chiefs of Police.

"It's a volatile issue in a lot of places. It's complex and not an area local police are trained ... in."

Many larger jurisdictions, including King County and the city of Seattle, have policies against any employee, including police, asking about a person's immigration status.

Voegtlin said police chiefs have become so overwhelmed by the problems posed by illegal immigration that the association recently issued a guide on basic immigration laws and issues.

"You'd be hard-pressed to find a chief anywhere who's not dealing with some aspect of this," Voegtlin said.

A Washington, D.C.-based research organization, the Pew Hispanic Center, has estimated 200,000 to 250,000 Washington state residents are in this country illegally.

Before local police can enforce immigration law, they must first contact ICE to check the background and immigration status of an individual. ICE spokeswoman Lorie Dankers said ICE works closely with local law-enforcement agencies and "always stands ready to respond."

But some advocates, particularly in South King County, where a growing number of illegal immigrants live, are worried this relationship may lead some immigrants not to report crime. These groups are trying to sound the alarm with mayors and chiefs of police to raise this concern.

Patchwork system

There's a quiltlike approach across the Puget Sound area to handling illegal immigration — from written policies that bar inquiries into a person's immigration status to unwritten policies that may encourage them. Some departments leave it to the discretion of individual officers, and often immigration officers are contacted only in cases of serious offenses.

Kent Police Chief Steve Strachan said, in practice, officers generally don't ask about immigration status unless it is relevant. "We want people who are undocumented and are victims of crime to report it and not to feel that out of fear they can't report crimes," Strachan said.

Other jurisdictions, like Lynnwood police, say they have a close relationship with immigration authorities and provide courtesy space in their offices for an ICE agent, who, in turn, works with local police throughout King County.

It's a convenient arrangement, spokeswoman Shannon Sessions said, and "has been helpful for educating our officers."

Bothell enjoys a similar relationship, working "hand in hand with ICE agents," Capt. Denise Langford said. Often, attorney Adolfo Ojeda-Casimiro said, immigrants are being turned over to ICE even in cases where local police aren't prepared to bring criminal charges against them.

In Lynnwood, some clients who showed up to pay parking tickets ended up being detained by ICE.

Calkins, the Pacific chief, said his officers know not to proceed with immigration enforcement until they've contacted ICE. And every case, he said, started with either criminal behavior or a traffic violation by the illegal immigrant.

Diaz lives in Lakewood, Pierce County, and is married to an U.S. citizen. He was in the process of obtaining legal status when he was pulled over in Pacific in May. But he said the officers didn't believe him and, after contacting an ICE agent, drove him to the detention center in Tacoma.

He was released on bond eight days later after presenting his paperwork to an immigration judge. But he said he lost a good-paying job as a granite installer because "the police scared my boss."

Lornet Turnbull: 206-464-2420 or lturnbull@seattletimes.com