Hemet backs Arizona's immigrant crackdown

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Hemet backs Arizona's immigrant crackdown
Hemet could become one of the first California cities to formally support Arizona's immigration law.
The City Council on Tuesday unanimously agreed to direct city staff to craft a resolution backing the law.
The Arizona law requires police officers during a "lawful stop, detention or arrest" to detain people they reasonably suspect are in the country without authorization and to verify their status with federal officials. It is scheduled to take effect in August.
Federal efforts to reform immigration law have repeatedly collapsed, leading states to attempt their own legislation as they experience spikes in illegal immigrants and related costs. Opponents say laws such as Arizona's invite racial profiling and harassment of Hispanics.
Hemet Councilwoman Robin Lowe said the city's resolution "is sending a message to the federal government for them to know that we support ICE (the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement) but that we'd also like them to do their job."
Los Angeles, San Francisco, Oakland, Santa Ana and San Diego all have passed resolutions condemning Arizona's law. The Hemet council did not set a date to vote on its resolution.
League of California Cities spokeswoman Eva Spiegel said she has not heard of any other city formally supporting the law, although she said her organization does not track such information.
Costa Mesa last week passed a resolution stating that the city will uphold immigration laws, but Mayor Allan Mansoor said the Arizona law did not provide the impetus.
On April 23, Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer signed what is considered one of the nation's toughest laws on illegal immigration.
Since then, many California cities and immigrant-rights organizations have come out against the law, even though polls conducted by Pew and the Wall Street Journal/NBC indicate that more than 60 percent of Americans favor the law.
Hemet Mayor Eric McBride brought the proposal to a study session Tuesday out of concern that violent crime, especially kidnapping, is spreading across the Mexican border into the United States. He cited a kidnapping in the Bay Area city of Monterey but didn't cite any incidents in Hemet, a 100-year-old city of about 80,000 people in southwest Riverside County.
"Maybe some people don't believe we should take any action on it," McBride said. "But it's going to affect us as everyday American citizens. ... Do we wait for that to happen, or do we as a country take a proactive stance and assure that does not happen? The state of Arizona is taking the first step forward."
Two people at the meeting spoke in favor of the resolution; no one spoke against it. Councilman Robert Youssef was absent.
"Eric, I think it takes a lot of courage to step up to the plate," said Cash Hovivian, a 20-year resident of Hemet. "There is right and there is wrong. A lot of people went through the process. My family had to go through the process to become a citizen, and there should be no free tickets now."
Luz Gallegos is community programs director for Perris-based TODEC, which provides free educational programs to English learners in the Inland Empire. She opposes the Hemet resolution.
"This is very, very sad to hear," she said. "This is one of the cities we do outreach to. For them to come up with something like that is a slap in the face of the immigrant community."
Reach Brian Rokos at 951-763-3464 or brokos@PE.com
http://www.pe.com/localnews/inland/s...6.30c119c.html