Riverside Police: Border Patrol offered help identifying immigrants (The Press-Enterprise)

Riverside Police: Border Patrol offered help identifying immigrants

04:48 PM PST on Sunday, February 8, 2009

By DAVID OLSON
The Press-Enterprise

The U.S. Border Patrol met with top Riverside police officials in November to offer its help in verifying the identity of immigrants, a police commander said Saturday.

The offer came as agents in the Riverside office of the Border Patrol said they were being threatened with punishment for not meeting arrest quotas, according to the union that represents them. The Border Patrol denies making such threats but acknowledges the Riverside office has numerical goals.

Immigrant-rights activists have criticized Riverside police for calling the Border Patrol on Jan. 29 after arresting 12 day laborers on Madison Street near Highway 91 on minor charges such as trespassing. They say police collaboration with the Border Patrol increases distrust of police and makes crime victims less likely to report incidents.

Not Enough Time

Police Lt. Bruce Loftus said he called the agency because his officers did not have time to verify the identity of the 12 men, and because the Border Patrol has experience in identity checks. The Border Patrol arrested 11 of the men on immigration charges.

Loftus said he called the Border Patrol to verify the suspects' identity but acknowledged "we know there's a chance people might be illegal aliens and we know Border Patrol has to perform their duties."

Loftus, commander of Riverside's central area, said he was among high-ranking police officials who met in November to hear the offer of assistance from the head of Riverside's Border Patrol office, Ramon Chavez.

Loftus said Chavez presented his offer as a way to assist local agencies with their day-to-day operations and barely mentioned enforcement of immigration laws.

Loftus said he told Chavez that police do not want crime victims to worry about being grilled on their immigration status, although he did not explicitly bar Border Patrol from asking such questions.

Help Sought in Past

Loftus said the Police Department had tried in the past to get the Border Patrol to help in translation and identity verification but had been told that agents were unavailable.

Agent Richard Velez, a spokesman for the Border Patrol, said Saturday he could not confirm the November meeting. But he said such conversations between the Border Patrol and other law-enforcement agencies have been occurring for years.

Officials with San Bernardino police and the Riverside County and San Bernardino County sheriff's offices were not able to immediately confirm Saturday whether Border Patrol has also reached out to their agencies.

Additional Agents

Border Patrol agents have more time now to assist local agencies because of the hiring of thousands of additional Border Patrol agents in recent years, Velez said. He said if a police agency asks the Border Patrol to not ask the legal status of a crime victim, agents would honor the request.

Yet Gilberto Esquivel, a member of Riverside's human-relations commission, said any collaboration between the Border Patrol and Riverside police would cause undocumented-immigrant crime victims to be less likely to call police for help.

"You've got the police who have limited trust to begin with, and now you're going to bring in the Border Patrol?" Esquivel said. "If people see them bring in Border Patrol, that will tell them the police cannot be trusted."

Esquivel said Riverside police reliance on the Border Patrol for translation is a form of "racial profiling," because police do not call Border Patrol for non-Latinos. Police should have enough translators on staff to not have to request help from the Border Patrol, he said.

No Racial Profiling

Loftus denied police engage in racial profiling. He said police call Border Patrol to help with some Spanish-speaking people because agents speak Spanish. Loftus said he's aware of at least one other instance in which police have called the Border Patrol since November. He was unaware of the details of the case.

Loftus on Saturday helped to monitor a demonstration that condemned recent raids and criticized Riverside police for calling the Border Patrol on Jan. 29. A crowd that Loftus estimated at 200 to 250, and demonstrators said totaled 500, marched more than two miles in the rain from Riverside City Hall to the Border Patrol's Riverside station.

About 25 people, many of them members of the Minuteman Project, held a counterdemonstration supporting the Border Patrol.

At least 39 people have been arrested in the past several weeks during Border Patrol sweeps of Inland day-labor sites, according to the Mexican and Guatemalan consulates. The Border Patrol acknowledges recent arrests on public streets but declines to confirm the number.