Arkansas Immigration-officer bill clears Senate committee

• Originally published in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette (Little Rock) March 4, 2005

Copyright 2005 Little Rock Newspapers, Inc.

BY MICHAEL R. WICKLINE ARKANSAS DEMOCRAT-GAZETTE

A bill that would allow the state police and the highway police to be trained as immigration officers cleared an Arkansas Senate committee Thursday over the objections of opponents who warned that it would worsen Hispanic immigrants' relations with law enforcement in the state.

The seven-member State Agencies and Governmental Affairs Committee voted 4-1 to send House Bill 1012 by Rep. Jeremy Hutchinson, R-Little Rock, to the Senate.

The bill would allow the colonel of the Arkansas State Police to reach "a memorandum of understanding" with the federal Department of Homeland Security under which troopers could be trained to enforce immigration laws.

The committee added an amendment to specify that any such agreement would be subject to review by the Legislative Council's Rules and Regulations Review Subcommittee.

The highway police, which is the law enforcement arm of the state Highway and Transportation Department, and the state police could receive training paid for and provided by the federal department. Then those officers could handle cases of people found to be in Arkansas illegally. Such jurisdiction would be limited to federal highways and interstates.

"This bill would have stopped Sept. 11 th or at least would have stopped another Sept. 11 th," Hutchinson told the committee, referring to the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

Federal officials can't adequately enforce immigration laws, leaving "a gaping hole" for terrorists, snipers and drug traffickers to exploit, Hutchinson said.

He said Homeland Security officials "realized that they need help on the streets" and "have begged states to help them."

Hutchinson said his bill would allow state police Director Steve Dozier to start negotiating with the federal department for federal money to train officers, educate others and to do other things.

"How can that lead to charges of racial profiling?" he asked the committee.

In response to a question from Sen. Jim Argue, D-Little Rock, who opposed the bill, Hutchinson said four claims of racial profiling have been filed against the state police. All were dropped, he said.

Gov. Mike Huckabee would have to approve any such agreement between the state police and the federal department, Hutchinson said.

Alabama and Florida have negotiated agreements with the federal department and California is negotiating one, Hutchinson said.

Dozier said he would obtain training for several of his officers and the program wouldn't expand beyond the agency's current interstate interdiction program. The training would last five weeks and would deal with immigration laws, preventing racial profiling and determining whether documents provided by immigrants are fraudulent, he said. "I don't want to do anything to cause fear of troopers," he said.

Alabama's troopers in this program arrest most people on state crimes and have found people on terrorist watch lists and chronic immigration violator lists, Dozier said.

But officials of the League of United Latin American Citizens, Community Leaders for Fair Policy, the Hispanic Women's Organization of Arkansas, Catholic Charities of Arkansas, the Arkansas Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers and the Arkansas Citizens First Congress urged the committee to reject the bill.

Ana Hart of Cave Springs, representing Community Leaders for Fair Policy, a coalition that describes itself as valuing the fair treatment of all Arkansans, said the bill would create a financial burden for the state to enforce federal immigration laws and encourage ethnic and racial profiling and wouldn't help fight crime.

The bill "is bad immigration policy and does more harm than good," Hart said.

Margarita Solorzano of Springdale, program coordinator for the Hispanic Women's Organization of Arkansas, said some people see the bill as "targeting the Latino community."

"We have been working in the community to soothe those fears [of law enforcement] and make better connections with law enforcement," she said.

The bill has revived fears about racial profiling by law enforcement, Solorzano said.

"It is going to make more crime go unreported," she said.

The bill "isn't against terrorism. It's against immigration," Solorzano said.

Hutchinson said he understands such fears.

Dozier could ask the federal department for funds to educate Hispanics not to fear local and state law enforcement and for the state police to train local law enforcement, the lawmaker said.