Police to Stop Questioning Suspects About Citizenship

Under pressure from civil rights groups, San Diego Police Chief Bill Kolender on Thursday rescinded an order that required his officers to try to identify whether the people they arrest are illegal aliens.

The decision came after two community groups and the local chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union complained about Kolender’s instructions to officers to mark a box on the standard arrest form if a suspect is an “undocumented person.” Police said the box was used, not for identification, but to supply statistics to the county.

The groups said judging a person’s citizenship is not the job of the police, and that the practice could fuel ill will and a “vendetta” against Latinos.

Assistant Police Chief Bob Burgreen said Thursday that police will no longer consider a person’s citizenship because “we are not interested in being immigration officials. The statistical information is not of enough value for us to be inquiring about citizenship.”

The box labeled “Undocumented Person” has been on the arrest form since 1982, and San Diego police have checked it when the suspect didn’t speak English, had no U.S address or admitted under questioning to being an illegal alien.

In a July 28 memo about “Arrested Undocumented Aliens” that was to be read to all police officers, Kolender reinforced the use of the box when he gave instructions on how to check it appropriately despite a misprint in the arrest form. “Proof or confirmation of undocumented status is not required” to check the box, Kolender wrote.

The memo said gathering the information would help “address undocumented alien crime.” Police on Thursday said the statistics were being compiled for county officials, who want to prove to the federal government that illegal aliens are a drain on San Diego County’s justice system.

Burgreen said Thursday that although the memo bore Kolender’s name, it was actually written by the department’s training division.

But the memo drew angry protests from groups that claimed police were contributing to skewed statistics that would militarize the border problem and pin the blame for rising crime on illegal aliens.

Thursday morning, the Committee on Chicano Rights held a press conference and called for Kolender’s resignation because members claimed he was fomenting anti-Latino sentiment.

“Our greatest fear is that it could result in a racial vendetta against every person of Mexican ancestry,” said Herman Baca, committee chairman. “If he (Kolender) wants his men to be Border Patrolmen, the INS (Immigration and Naturalization Service) is hiring.”

The American Civil Liberties Union and members of the Harborview Community Council also criticized the memo for reaffirming police involvement in border control, a federal responsibility.

“It directs officers to make judgments in every case of an arrest,” said Greg Marshall, ACLU legal director. “Essentially it is asking for hunches and subjective judgments of patrol officers about who is undocumented. . . .

“You might just as well have officers assuming the political affiliation or blood cholesterol level of the people they arrest. The question is: What does it matter? I think there is a lot of pressure to stigmatize undocumented immigrants, and that’s something we’re very concerned about.”

Al Ducheny, chairman of the Harborview Community Council, said the box-checking circumvents due-process safeguards and inflates figures on how much undocumented aliens add to local crime. Kolender has said publicly that illegal aliens from Mexico are to blame, in part, for San Diego’s rising crime rate.

“The whole idea is really insane,” Ducheny said. “We see it basically as a follow-up on what (San Diego County Supervisor) Susan Golding started a few months ago.”

Golding has come under criticism for her proposal to sue the federal government to recover what she said was an estimated $23 million the county paid in the last five years to provide social services or arrest and jail illegal aliens. Her charges that illegal aliens committed a significant number of violent crimes also drew protests from Latinos. Plans for the lawsuit have been shelved.

Burgreen said that, after telephone complaints and a written protest by the ACLU, Kolender decided Thursday to write a new memo discontinuing the practice of questioning a suspect’s citizenship and marking the box on the arrest form.

“The chief and I had a discussion and we agreed that we are not immigration officers and we are not to inquire about citizenship,” Burgreen said. “We’re rescinding that (July 28) order right now. . . . There’s nothing illegal about it. We’re just choosing not to follow it.”

He added that Kolender is reviewing other ways in which local police participate in immigration enforcement.

For about a year, city police have been detaining people they believe are illegal aliens involved in crimes, even ones as minor as jay-walking. They hold suspects for 20 minutes so they can call immigration officials and offer them a chance to pick up the suspect.

Burgreen said the results of the immigration review would be released next week.

“We are concerned about the amount of time our officers are spending enforcing immigration laws,” Burgreen said. “We are asking ourselves, ‘What is it costing us?’ ”

The San Diego County Sheriff’s Department uses the same arrest form, but a spokesman for the department said he did not know how deputies use the box.

Border Patrol spokesman Gene Smithburg said immigration officials rely significantly on referrals from local law enforcement for arrests of illegal aliens.

Smithburg declined to comment on what a change in police policy would mean to his agency.