More articles on crime victims afraid to report crimes to police

There are even more newspaper articles about crime victims who are afraid to report crimes to the police because of a fear that the police may call immigration authorities to try to deport someone related to the victims. Allowing immigration authorities to deport crime victims and crime witnesses (or their close family as a result of the crime) is a poor public policy choice because victims will be afraid to report crimes to the police, which hurts basic crime-fighting measures.

The Visalia Times-Delta in California printed "Fear of police makes immigrants easy targets for gang harassment" by David Catellon on February 23, 2008:

Young men newly arrived from Mexico and Central America are easy prey for established Norteño street gangs, experts say. They usually won't report crimes against them because they fear, particularly if they are not here legally, that law enforcement officers will turn them over to federal immigration authorities.

The Naples (FL) Daily News printed a story "Community lost trust in Sheriff's Office since deputies joined ICE, some say" by Tracy X. Miguel on February 21, 2008.

Naples resident Lourdes Salas, who immigrated from Peru 20 years ago and is now a U.S. citizen, is afraid of driving in Immokalee because of racial profiling.

As explained in previous blog postings, the fear that crime victims might be deported after talking to the local police is a real danger -- especially in New Jersey, where a Brazilian man was a crime victim, called the local police to report the crime and help the local police search for the criminals, and as a direct result of helping the local police, the police called in the immigration authorities and got a deportation order against the crime victim in immigration court. That case is on appeal to the Third Circuit, but the immigration authorities have refused to drop the case or find any reasonable way to settle the issue other than to seek to deport the crime victim.