Cops will ask: Are you legal?

Cops will ask: Are you legal?

After Newark killings, AG orders police to check suspects' immigration status

Thursday, August 23, 2007

BY RICK HEPP AND BRIAN DONOHUE

Star-Ledger Staff

Police in New Jersey are now under orders to ask suspects they arrest for serious crimes or drunken driving this question: Are you here legally?

Setting a statewide policy where none existed, Attorney General Anne Milgram yesterday made immigration checks a routine part of police procedure, requiring state and local officers to notify federal authorities when they have reason to believe a suspect is in the country illegally.

At the same time, the attorney general prohibited officers from inquiring about the immigration status of crime victims, witnesses or persons reporting a crime, so that unauthorized immigrants can come forward without fear of deportation.

The orders, which take effect immediately, come as questions continue to mount over the handling of a suspect in the recent killings of three college students in a Newark schoolyard. One of the chief suspects, Jose Lachira Carranza, was an illegal immigrant from Peru who was out on bail awaiting trial on charges of aggravated assault and child rape.

Essex County prosecutors and the state Superior Court said they did not know Carranza was here illegally when bail was set in the two cases -- which is why Milgram yesterday also ordered police to notify county prosecutors and the court if they believe a suspect is not authorized to be here.

"There's no question that the Newark tragedy really shined a light and brought focus to the question of what was happening throughout the state with regard to notification to immigration authorities," Milgram said. "What we found was that it depended ... on who the police chief was and what county you were in. There is a need for a uniform state policy."

The order drew praise from county and local police departments, although groups such as the American Civil Liberties Union of New Jersey and the Latino Leadership Alliance of New Jersey cautioned that it could lead to abuse by local officers.

"There needs to be more training with regard to this and other related issues to ensure it doesn't go down a path of enforcing federal immigration policy or racial profiling," said Charles "Shai" Goldstein, executive director of the New Jersey Immigration Policy Network.

Milgram said the state will monitor departments periodically to insure compliance and issue an annual report on how often notifications are made. She stressed that officers are prohibited from racial profiling -- treating suspects differently based on their ethnicity.

The attorney general yesterday also set limits on participation of state, county and local officers in a controversial program run by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement that deputizes police to enforce immigration laws. Milgram said officers can only act as federal deputies once an arrest has been made and cannot patrol towns simply to find illegal immigrants.

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