A bad use of Nassau cops: Bruce Blakeman’s ICE agreement puts public safety at risk

This week, Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman fed his affinity for civilization warfare reddish nutrient that doesn’t really assistance his constituents by announcing that the Nassau County Police Department had entered into a alleged 287(g) agreement with the national government, deputizing 10 detectives to behaviour definite migration enforcement functions.

This is conscionable showboating, utilizing a seldom-used programme (for conscionable a fistful of detectives) that goes backmost to Bill Clinton’s time. The 10 detectives should proceed to absorption connected solving existent crimes and not beryllium diverted from that indispensable nationalist information function.

Under the deal, the detectives could tally the names of radical arrested by Nassau cops done national databases to find if they had imaginable migration violations, alert ICE, and clasp these radical until national instrumentality enforcement could travel prime them up.

The occupation of the NCPD is to support the county’s residents, which it tin execute by enforcing the authorities and section laws. Blakeman indispensable inquire himself: volition this statement heighten nationalist safety? Or, its related inverse, does this person the imaginable to harm nationalist safety?

When it comes to 287(g) agreements, there’s a crushed that truthful fewer counties astir the state, adjacent those with Republican leadership, person decided to partake. These agreements make an further load connected section resources arsenic immoderate information of section instrumentality enforcement’s attention, clip and vigor is geared towards acting arsenic agents for the feds, which needfully means that these efforts are diverted distant from investigating and resolving the section crimes that these departments were created for and are tasked with combating.

It doesn’t substance if Blakeman insists that these volition beryllium insignificant redeployments of resources; each hr spent processing oregon holding an migrant for ICE is 1 not spent, for example, investigating homicides. Of course, beyond the unnecessary added responsibilities, we tin good expect this statement to really substantially harm the NCPD’s quality to enactment with the nationalist to sphere nationalist safety. Already, migrant communities, of which determination are galore connected Long Island, are connected edge implicit President Trump’s deportation push.

What is going to hap is that immigrants — undocumented and documented, oregon adjacent U.S. national household members of immigrants — are going to perceive that the NCPD is moving with ICE present and whitethorn halt reporting transgression activity, halt cooperating with enforcement efforts, halt serving arsenic witnesses and showing up to court. This is going to marque everyone successful the assemblage little harmless portion not doing thing to heighten nationalist safety.

If Blakeman is disquieted astir immigrants perchance committing crimes successful the region — which, arsenic we often punctual readers, they bash astatine little rates than the native-born — past the constabulary are already empowered to woody with that via the existing transgression justness system. They bash not request to furniture connected an further strategy that volition dissuade residents from trusting the police, particularly since it’s a strategy liable to enactment guiltless radical successful the crosshairs.

Under our justness systems, an apprehension does not equate guilt, but if idiosyncratic is arrested and past turned implicit to ICE, a dismissal oregon eventual acquittal means nothing. This is simply a decent woody for ICE and a unspeakable 1 for Nassau County and its nationalist safety. We anticipation Blakeman volition recognize this earlier excessively overmuch harm is done.