Border police initiative fails to make ballot
By Mason Stockstill
Staff Writer  
2-1-06
www.dailybulletin.com/news/ci_3462297
The California Border Police Initiative, spearheaded by Assemblyman Ray Haynes, R-Murrieta, would create an agency of roughly 2,000 to 3,000 officers charged with arresting illegal immigrants for deportation by the federal government.

Despite the number of regular citizens who volunteered to gather signatures for the initiative, it fell short of the nearly 600,000 needed to qualify for the primary election. On Jan. 3, Haynes resubmitted the proposal to the Attorney General's Office for the November election.

Haynes and his campaign consultants did not return repeated calls seeking comment. In a previous interview, the assemblyman said the police force is needed to "do what the federal government's not doing."

"They would be throughout the state," he said. "There would be interior enforcement, which the federal government doesn't do. There would be employer enforcement, which the federal government doesn't do."

He also estimated the state would save billions of dollars annually by not providing government services such as health care and education to illegal immigrants.

Though Haynes was confident enough signatures will be gathered to get the initiative on the ballot, opponents said its failure to qualify last year is a sign that there is not a wide level of support for the proposal.

Establishing such a police force only appeals to a limited number of Californians who hold extreme views about immigration and Latinos in general, said Armando Navarro of the Riverside-based National Alliance for Human Rights.

"What base they do have is a small population that they pander to because of their apprehension, the fear that exists toward the Latino community, which is clearly becoming a majority population," Navarro said.

Navarro noted his organization has received what he called "hate mail" from supporters of proposals like the border police or the volunteer Minuteman patrols, using derogatory terms to describe Latinos and referring to illegal immigration as "an invasion."

The Pew Hispanic Center estimates the illegal immigrant population in the United States to be about 11 million, with more than 6 million of those coming from Mexico.

Haynes came up with the idea for the agency last year, after learning that federal law allows local or state police officers to enforce immigration law if they've been trained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Under the same law, sheriff's departments in Riverside, San Bernardino and Los Angeles counties have begun training with ICE to have their deputies check the immigration status of suspects being held in county jails.

Most police agencies in California have policies preventing officers from inquiring about anyone's immigration status, because officials believe that if immigrants feared deportation, they would never contact the police and crime would go unreported.

The initiative's campaign committee raised more than $250,000 in the first nine months of 2005, according to the Secretary of State's Office. Most of the money was given in $5,000 or $10,000 increments from other campaign committees, like Dennis Mountjoy for Assembly 2004 and Friends of Bill Morrow.

Both Mountjoy, an assemblyman from Monrovia, and Morrow, a state senator from Oceanside, have endorsed the measure.

Establishing such a police force only appeals to a limited number of Californians who hold extreme views about immigration and Latinos in general, said Armando Navarro of the Riverside-based National Alliance for Human Rights.

Most police agencies in California have policies preventing officers from inquiring about anyone's immigration status, because officials believe that if immigrants feared deportation, they would never contact the police and crime would go unreported.

In the meantime "immigrant" on "immigrant" crime goes largely unreported anyway

Haynes and his campaign consultants did not return repeated calls seeking comment. In a previous interview, the assemblyman said the police force is needed to "do what the federal government's not doing." "They would be throughout the state," he said. "There would be interior enforcement, which the federal government doesn't do. There would be employer enforcement, which the federal government doesn't do." He also estimated the state would save billions of dollars annually by not providing government services such as health care and education to illegals immigrants.

The feds should be prosecuted for theft of salary, benefits and retirement plans

Sometimes with issues like this my opinion is "Well fuk 'em then.  They didn't want to support the measure, then they can deal with the crime, the closed hospitals, and collapsed social servies".  And I really do feel this way about those who want to allow the invasion to continue.

Then I think about how these problems with illegals are effecting my own community in Western New york and I just get pissed.  I get really pissed when I hear people talking in support of the illegals.  When I engage them in conversation about it they're generally clueless about how much they really cost us, the diseases they bring with them, and the crimes committed by them.  


-K