This is a commendable goal to calm the residents of Pierce County that they can call the police without fear of deportation. This was tried to do Sheriff Keith Swank when he told News Tribune this week that his department did not manage the information of the victims of crime to see if they had legal status.
It is essential that anyone who has to call 911, especially for their own safety or safety of others, should be able to do it without hesitation or fear. (And it must be said that 911 does not directly lead to the sheriff’s office. This is a shipping service that is related to the first responding throughout the region.)
But the sheriff’s policy is not the only thing that matters when it comes to the fact that people feel confident when they call the law enforcement agencies. Perceptions are also important. So it’s weird that Swank will make his comments the same month when he travels to Washington, Colombia, where he briefly met with US General Prosecutor Pam Bondi.
Swank wants to focus on criminals and that’s good. But in order to make residents conveniently call the Sheriff’s office, what Swank really needs to do is publicly said that he supports a proper process for undocumented immigrants. He is currently aligned with the immigration policy, which says the opposite.
Bondi helps to protect and carry out the Trump Administration Deportation Program. This is the agenda, which in just 100 days gathered the court challenges, raised constitutional issues and unleashed the chaos of the life of immigrants and visitors. This is an agenda that claims that the unborn does not owe a proper process in the United States.
Sheriff Keith Swank (third on the left, front) is shown in an unpaid photo with other sheriffs from Washington state during a meeting with US Prosecutor Pam Bondi in Washington, Colombia County, County
Swank was not in DC to meet Bondi. He was traveling with a group of Sheriffs of Washington to show support for Adams County Sheriff Dale Wagner, who is fighting the ability to help federal staff in the application of immigration. Wagner is facing a lawsuit by Washington General Nick Brown for being claimed to have kept people in custody based solely on their immigration status and support for immigration law enforcement officers in other ways that violate state legislation.
However, the photograph of the US General Prosecutor sends a very specific message about where Swank is aligned with immigration.
On a national scale, immigration and customs law enforcement have deported people to his arrest in El Salvador, where they were in prison without a chance to defend themselves from the allegations that they belong to gangs. Numerous federal judges have asked the legal basis for these and other recent deportations.
In the Tacom region, students from the University of Washington have seen that their legal status has been terminated without notice and a small explanation. In one case, immigration officials set up the termination of an unproven allegation of a non -violent crime when the federal law requires a sentence for a crime of violence in order to take place the legal status of the student. The government has returned the legal status to many students, but not before turning its life and education upside down.
Again, it is important that Swank does not want to scare undocumented residents away from the police call and soothing to hear that it does not manage information about the victims of crime. But when people are threatened with deportation on the basis of unproven allegations of crime, who can be sure they will not be called a criminal after law enforcement agencies?
Parting in a photo with Bondi while in DC to discuss how sheriffs can cooperate with the federal implementation of immigration, undermines Swank’s confidence. To worry that it is not foolish to worry that it is also not soothing, given the neglect of the proper process shown by federal immigration officers.
If Swank wants unspecified residents to feel safe in his department, he will have to do more to prove it. It can begin by supporting a proper process for all residents, regardless of their legal status.