Saturday, January 13, 2007

Massachusetts Rescinds Deal on Policing Immigration

excerpt from NY TImes article by Katie Zezima:

Gov. Deval L. Patrick said Thursday that as expected, he had rescinded a new agreement between Massachusetts and federal officials that empowered the state police to arrest illegal immigrants on charges of violating immigration law.

The agreement was announced last month by Mitt Romney, who was then governor and has since opened a campaign for the Republican presidential nomination in 2008. Within nine days of the announcement, Mr. Patrick, as the Democratic governor-elect, said he would void the accord on the ground that state troopers already had enough to do enforcing Massachusetts statutes and should not have the added responsibility of dealing with federal law.

...

Mr. Patrick said doing away with the arrangement negotiated by Mr. Romney would allow state troopers to maintain a focus on gun-, drug- and gang-related crime.

“The wisest and most practical course,” he said, “is for state troopers to focus on enforcing Massachusetts laws.”

The governor was joined at the news conference by the Massachusetts secretary of public safety, Kevin M. Burke, who said state police officials had expressed concern that the increased responsibilities would overburden their officers.

“It would definitely have affected, according to their analysis, their ability to deal with their core mission” of enforcing state law, Mr. Burke said.

There were no arrests under the Romney agreement, since, Mr. Patrick said, the state troopers chosen to carry out the policy had not yet begun a required six-week training course.

At least eight other jurisdictions have already partnered with the federal government in helping enforce immigration law. Arizona and five counties in California and North Carolina have agreements with Washington involving state corrections officers, while Alabama and Florida have arrangements involving the state police.

For the full NY Times article click HERE.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

The laws Mitt Rommeny was trying to put in place just shows what they realy thing of American people. Please tell me who raised there kids to be bus boys,grass cutters,heavy manaul labours, or sell oranges and flowers at highwat eixts.No one who went to school and speaks english wants to do this never mind American citzens.But if you pass blame on to immigrants for taking jobs .People stop asking what he done for Americans apart from wasted everyones time and moneywhen he was in charge .American people raise there children to own the restaurent no clean it


Eddie Reynolds

Anonymous said...

This strikes me as very strange indeed. State law enforcement not able to enforce federal law! So that means no enforcement of kidnapping; interstate smuggling; federal tax evasion; espionage, and other federal crimes, by state and local peace officers.
Six weeks of training sounds kind of long as well. What is so complicated and time consuming about the procedures for enforcng immigration laws?

Anonymous said...

In order to manage a restuarant, you should have experience waiting and busing tables; to own a landscaping company, you need to know how to operate a lawn mover, and know the smell of grass. Our kids deserve the opportunity to work at minimum wage jobs to learn about life, and development their professional skills.

Anonymous said...

^^^^ Smell the grass...

Did your kid sell you on the fantasy that illegals stole his chance at a minimum wage job?

Get real.

Tell your kid to put down the PS2, quit "smelling" so much grass, and hit the pavement. He will have no trouble obtaining minimum wage employment.

Anonymous said...

What's a PS2?

Anonymous said...

^^^Play Station 2 - you obviously only have hypothetical kids or you would know that.