THE DALLAS MORNING NEWS
DALLAS — Top police and sheriff’s officials from most of the state’s largest cities and counties united Thursday to decry immigration legislation that would shift the burden of enforcement onto their departments, saying the proposals are bad ideas that will strain police and harm public safety.
Lawmakers have proposed about 80 measures this year that aim to stem public anger over the state’s rising population of illegal immigrants. The governor has called for an end to “sanctuary city” policies under which local police cannot ask about immigration status.
Other plans would make it a state crime of criminal trespass to be in Texas illegally.
Dallas County Sheriff Lupe Valdez said Thursday that such laws would stress the county’s already troubled jails and cause officers to be taken off the street for training programs that the state won’t fund.
Valdez said Dallas County alone held 3,200 illegal immigrants in the jail last year, costing county taxpayers $6 million in housing. And the immigrants would displace violent criminals, she said.
“We should have people in jail that we’re afraid of - not people that we’re angry at,” Valdez said.
Rep. Debbie Riddle, R-Houston, sponsor of a bill to allow officers to ask about the immigration status of someone who is being detained on suspicion of another crime, said her bill would provide “a discretionary tool,” not an unfunded mandate.
Copyright 2011 THE DALLAS MORNING NEWS