How can one tell if Attorney General Anne Milgram did the right thing when she recently issued a directive to all police officers in New Jersey to report to federal authorities certain people they suspect are here in violation of immigration laws? Easy - both sides of the immigration debate are unhappy with the Attorney General’s directive, but not so unhappy as to take to the streets over the issue, or even level personal attacks on our new Attorney General. She did the right thing.

To understand how the Attorney General could accomplish such a feat, first examine the context in which she issued her directive. It had less to do with the murders of the three college students in Newark and the disclosure that one of the suspects in that case is an undocumented immigrant, than with the fact that, without such a directive, law enforcement officers all over the state were doing nothing or whatever they thought was appropriate when they came in contact with undocumented immigrants. In other words, the lack of uniform rules had led to disparate practices and results, an intolerable situation that required appropriate remedial action by the top law enforcement officer in this state. So, the Attorney General had to act, and she did.

On the substance of her action, she has been criticized by groups sympathetic to immigrants, such as The Latino Leadership Alliance, for not including more objective criteria in her directive. Those on the other side of the debate, those who favor deporting as many of the estimated 12 million undocumented immigrants in this country as possible, have criticized the Attorney General for not going far enough: they would have her seek to deputize every police officer in the state to act as federal immigration and customs enforcement officers with power to arrest anyone suspected of immigration violations.

The criticism of the latter group ignores the reality that this country’s economy, and New Jersey’s economy in particular, would be crippled if not destroyed by mass deportations of those who wash our dishes and cars, care for our children, pick our blueberries, etc., etc., etc. Furthermore, their criticism is blind to the fact that our criminal justice system would crumble under the weight of mass arrests of that magnitude.

As to those like LLA who argue for more lenient or sympathetic treatment of immigrants, their criticism of the Attorney General’s directive ignores the fact that the devil is in the details, which makes it impossible to incorporate all desired or even necessary details in the first directive in this state to address this issue.

I urge both sides to give the Attorney General the space and the time to develop the criteria by which she will be able to determine whether her directive leads to the desired uniformity in enforcement. At the same time I urge the Attorney General to keep under close scrutiny those departments that may be tempted to read more into her directive than what it says. I’m referring here to departments whose leaders have announced a desire to deputize their members to act as ICE agents, for example. Close monitoring of the implementation of the directive in the next few months, coupled with scrutiny of the process in those few departments who resist or abuse their powers in enforcing the directive will inevitably show what steps should be taken to fine-tune the directive. The Attorney General has shown by her actions that she is receptive to suggestions on how to improve the directive to achieve the goals of uniformity and ensuring the safety of all our communities. Give her room to do her job. How minority and immigrant communities in New Jersey are treated by and relate to law enforcement will depend in large part on whether she succeeds in this effort. Those communities in particular should stand ready to help in this endeavor.

This entry was posted on Friday, September 14th, 2007 at 12:36 pm and is filed under Immigration. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.