By Greg Forester, Staff Writer
PLAINSBORO — Police officers here have referred at least five criminal cases involving illegal immigrants to federal immigration authorities, in accordance with a directive issued by New Jersey Attorney General Anne Milgram last summer, according to Police Chief Elizabeth Bondurant.
The directive ordered local police and state law enforcement authorities to refer undocumented workers they arrest for indictable offenses or drunken driving to the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials.
But other than that, state officials believe local police should stay out of America’s immigration battle.
”Local police should remain local police, and not become federal immigration officers,” said attorney general’s spokesman David Wald.
Chief Bondurant said her officers are following those sentiments to the tee.
Plainsboro officers have only brought up the immigration status of people they come across in pertinent law enforcement situations, during drunken driving incidents or the investigations of other serious crimes.
”Basically we are not proactively out there looking for immigrants, unless we come across them through arrests,” said Chief Bondurant. “We’re not actively pursuing them.”
The most common offense that has resulted in the notification of federal authorities have been drunken driving cases, which tend to happen frequently on Route 1.
When something like that happens, the Plainsboro Police Department has a procedure in which it notifies the proper authorities about the case, and take the proper action.
”But other than that, we do not take an active stance on immigration,” Chief Bondurant said.
Mayor Peter Cantu said that it was important that the police department adhere to the attorney general’s directive, but declined to speak further on the issue.
”It is really a police matter,” he said.
State officials said that the current policy is really an educational period, with information about the cases being recorded by both the Attorney General’s Office and each county prosecutor’s office.
So far the directive seems to be having the expected effect, with New Jersey seeing an increase in the number of immigration offenses reported, and increasing incidents of federal authorities making arrests for immigration crimes.
Mr. Wald stressed that only those illegal immigrants who get caught driving while intoxicated or committing other serious offenses are being reported.
”They are not to ask witnesses or victims about immigration status,” said Mr. Wald.
Those policies are in place because of the importance of trust in conducting criminal investigations, according to Mr. Wald.
The idea is that if local police became heavily involved in pursuing illegal immigrants, the ability to conduct those investigations would be damaged because witnesses, victims and immigrants in general would not contact or work with police, state officials said.
The attorney general’s office is not taking those instances lightly, having already condemned the conduct of one Newark officer who investigated the immigration status of an illegal immigrant who happened to be a witness in the investigation.
”When this happens, advocates in the community need to get in touch with us,” Mr. Wald said.
