Roswell Police to Stop Policy of Holding Immigrants

Roswell police have stopped detaining undocumented immigrants for the Border Patrol.

Police Chief Rob Smith told a Police Council Committee meeting Wednesday that recent conversations with the Border Patrol and Immigration and Customs Enforcement cast doubt on the practice.

“The legal people are saying, ‘Well, we’re not sure,’ and I think the reason they’re not sure is it’s never been challenged,” he said.

Smith said the Roswell department has detained suspected undocumented immigrants since he became an officer 32 years ago.

The American Civil Liberties Union has argued that holding undocumented immigrants without a criminal charge constitutes unlawful detention. Being in the country without proper documents is a civil violation.

Smith told officers in a memo May 14 the department no longer would incarcerate undocumented immigrants if their legal status in the country was the only charge.

“This does not preclude officers from notifying immigration authorities when an undocumented foreign national is incarcerated on another charge,” he wrote. “This does not preclude an officer from providing identifying and location information on an undocumented foreign national to immigration authorities.”

The department’s policy had been that officers could contact immigration authorities if they suspected someone they came across in their normal duties might be in the United States illegally. If officers arrested someone they suspected was an illegal immigrant, the policy required ICE be contacted.

A subcommittee will review the policy. The police committee plans to take up the issue again July 29.

In April, Mayor Sam LaGrone and city councilors agreed to review the policy after residents charged police with racially profiling Hispanics. Smith denied the accusation.

Racial tensions in the southern New Mexico town were publicized in April after the League of United Latin American Citizens sent a letter detailing complaints of racial discrimination from Hispanic residents and asked the U.S. Justice Department and the state attorney general’s office to assess the situation.

The Rev. Juan Montoya, president of the Alliance for Peace and Justice in Roswell, attended Wednesday’s police committee meeting and supported a policy resembling that of the Otero County Sheriff’s Department.

The ACLU and the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund sued the Otero County department in 2007. That department, in a 2008 settlement, revised its procedures to make sure Hispanics would not be targeted.

The Otero County guidelines prohibit deputies from stopping, investigating, questioning or detaining people solely to determine if they’re in the country legally and from asking about a person’s immigration status in petty misdemeanors. Deputies can ask about immigration status in more serious cases only if it’s relevant to the investigation.

Roswell City Attorney Barbara Patterson said she has been in contact with the ACLU. ACLU representatives declined to comment while negotiations are ongoing.

By The Associated Press

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