Does anyone have any practical suggestions on how we can successfully encourage the thousands of undocumented or illegal immigrants currently residing in Austin, Texas, to immediately report crimes they directly witness to the Austin Police Department?
I am raising this question after reading online this week that unauthorized immigrants in the USA often fear that if they report a crime to a local police department, it could lead to a federal agency deporting themselves. If unauthorized immigrants in Austin don't report crimes they know about, it can significantly undermine criminal-law investigations and prosecutions in the Austin area.
Unauthorized immigrants in the "Austin-Round Rock" area in the year 2016 comprised an estimated total of 100,000 persons. It is not clear to me whether that figure only refers to unauthorized Hispanic immigrants residing in the "Austin-Round Rock" area. The online source on that is a March 11, 2019, report from the apparently-authoritative Pew Research Center.
On September 26, 2017, Austin Police Chief Brian Manley was quoted by reporter Christian Flores of CBS Austin Television News as saying: "(APD) Officers will not be able to ask ...(about the current immigration status of) someone who is a victim or witness of a crime, except under certain circumstances, such as if that person is believed to be involved in a separate crime": https://cbsaustin.com/news/local/apd-chief-makes-policy-changes-in-wake-of-sb4-ruling
From my own vantage point as a concerned citizen and former Texas Department of Public Safety employee, it is not clear whether that particular policy decision by APD Chief Manley is still in effect today (May 13, 2020).
Austin 311 telephone information and referral-service staff member Charles offered the following comment to me on the telephone at about 10:15 p.m. this Tuesday, May 12, 2020: "We (the City Government of Austin) would definitely encourage anyone who sees a crime to report it, regardless of their citizenship status....It's the only way it (the crime they witnessed) gets solved."
However, fear of arrest and deportation by the federal agency Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the federal Customs and Border Protection Agency (CBP) apparently plays a major role in the apparent decision by unauthorized immigrants in Austin to choose not to contact the police if they witness a crime. The undocumented immigrants may fear that if they report a crime to the Austin Police Department, the federal agency ICE or CBP could obtain access to that information and then investigate whether they are authorized immigrants.
The headline of a July 12, 2018, "Las Vegas (Nevada) Sun" daily newspaper article written by Camalot Todd declares: "Forced into shadows: Deportation fears silence undocumented crime witnesses, victims". That article contains the following statements that also may also be applicable to Austin:
"Police chiefs in Los Angeles, Houston, Salt Lake (City, Utah,) and Frederick County, Maryland, noted a worrisome trend where the wider Latino and immigrant populations are reporting crimes less frequently, according to a 2018 Immigrant Impacts in 287(g) report by the Center for American Progress.
“'The biggest thing for an undocumented person is to just stay off of ICE’s radar,' (University of Nevada at Las Vegas Law School Professor Michael) Kagan said. 'If interaction with local police puts you on ICE’s radar, it becomes a good reason, a very rational reason, for a person who is just going to work every day and taking care of their family to become fearful of the police, and when that happens it becomes much harder for an urban police department to ensure everyone’s public safety.'" https://lasvegassun.com/news/2018/jul/12/forced-into-shadows-deportation-fears-silence-undo/
Another source, the ACLU, in 2018 reported cases of arrests being imposed by ICE and other federal law-enforcement agency officers on undocumented immigrants in the USA who reported a crime to police or went to court to testify about a crime: https://www.aclu.org/press-releases/new-aclu-report-shows-fear-deportation-deterring-immigrants-reporting-crimes
Even in the pre-Trump-Era year 2011, there was widespread fear of deportation among immigrants who witnessed a crime in the USA. "At a time referred to as 'an unprecedented era of immigration enforcement,' undocumented immigrants who have the misfortune to witness a crime in this country face a terrible decision," observed University of Colorado Law School Professor Violeta R. Chapin in a 2011 article of hers published in "Michigan Journal of Race and Law," Volume 17. "Calling the police to report that crime will likely lead to questions that reveal a witness's immigration status, resulting in detention and deportation for the undocumented immigrant witness....Silence, in the form of a complete refusal to call the police to report crime or participate in local prosecutions, is a potent and defensible act of civil disobedience by the estimated twenty-two million immigrants in this country with anything less than full-citizenship status." https://repository.law.umich.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1021&context=mjrl
From my own vantage point as a concerned citizen and former Texas Department of Public Safety employee, it is not clear whether that particular policy decision by APD Chief Manley is still in effect today (May 13, 2020).
Austin 311 telephone information and referral-service staff member Charles offered the following comment to me on the telephone at about 10:15 p.m. this Tuesday, May 12, 2020: "We (the City Government of Austin) would definitely encourage anyone who sees a crime to report it, regardless of their citizenship status....It's the only way it (the crime they witnessed) gets solved."
However, fear of arrest and deportation by the federal agency Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the federal Customs and Border Protection Agency (CBP) apparently plays a major role in the apparent decision by unauthorized immigrants in Austin to choose not to contact the police if they witness a crime. The undocumented immigrants may fear that if they report a crime to the Austin Police Department, the federal agency ICE or CBP could obtain access to that information and then investigate whether they are authorized immigrants.
The headline of a July 12, 2018, "Las Vegas (Nevada) Sun" daily newspaper article written by Camalot Todd declares: "Forced into shadows: Deportation fears silence undocumented crime witnesses, victims". That article contains the following statements that also may also be applicable to Austin:
"Police chiefs in Los Angeles, Houston, Salt Lake (City, Utah,) and Frederick County, Maryland, noted a worrisome trend where the wider Latino and immigrant populations are reporting crimes less frequently, according to a 2018 Immigrant Impacts in 287(g) report by the Center for American Progress.
“'The biggest thing for an undocumented person is to just stay off of ICE’s radar,' (University of Nevada at Las Vegas Law School Professor Michael) Kagan said. 'If interaction with local police puts you on ICE’s radar, it becomes a good reason, a very rational reason, for a person who is just going to work every day and taking care of their family to become fearful of the police, and when that happens it becomes much harder for an urban police department to ensure everyone’s public safety.'" https://lasvegassun.com/news/2018/jul/12/forced-into-shadows-deportation-fears-silence-undo/
Another source, the ACLU, in 2018 reported cases of arrests being imposed by ICE and other federal law-enforcement agency officers on undocumented immigrants in the USA who reported a crime to police or went to court to testify about a crime: https://www.aclu.org/press-releases/new-aclu-report-shows-fear-deportation-deterring-immigrants-reporting-crimes
Even in the pre-Trump-Era year 2011, there was widespread fear of deportation among immigrants who witnessed a crime in the USA. "At a time referred to as 'an unprecedented era of immigration enforcement,' undocumented immigrants who have the misfortune to witness a crime in this country face a terrible decision," observed University of Colorado Law School Professor Violeta R. Chapin in a 2011 article of hers published in "Michigan Journal of Race and Law," Volume 17. "Calling the police to report that crime will likely lead to questions that reveal a witness's immigration status, resulting in detention and deportation for the undocumented immigrant witness....Silence, in the form of a complete refusal to call the police to report crime or participate in local prosecutions, is a potent and defensible act of civil disobedience by the estimated twenty-two million immigrants in this country with anything less than full-citizenship status." https://repository.law.umich.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1021&context=mjrl
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