The Trump administration is endangering the very American communities it claims to be protecting through drastic immigration enforcement efforts, a Southern law enforcement official said.
“Our role is to keep our communities safe, and what we’re witnessing all across this country, and certainly in Minneapolis, is ripping away at that trust and making it more difficult for me to do my job right here in North Carolina,” Durham County Sheriff Clarence Birkhead said.
Clarence Birkhead
“What we don’t need to continue to do is terrorize American citizens, terrorize neighborhoods across this great country and put people in fear of being detained or scooped up and shipped off somewhere simply because they look a certain way. That’s unacceptable,” Birkhead said during a webinar hosted by the National Immigration Forum, a Washington, D.C.-based organization dedicated to advancing effective and humane solutions to the nation’s immigration challenges.
The online event featuring Birkhead and Tim Quinn, a former U.S. Customs and Border Protection official, was held amid increasingly violent immigration tactics and the fatal shootings of two U.S. citizens by federal officers. The idea was to discuss how enforcement can be conducted without harming immigrants and local communities, Forum President Jennie Murray said.
“No one should ever get hurt or killed amid an immigration enforcement effort, especially by agencies that are meant to keep us safe and secure,” she said.
Tom Homan, the administration’s leading immigration official, responded to the killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti by claiming “massive changes” are coming in how the Department of Homeland Security carries out immigrant detention and deportation policies.
The changes will include a draw-down in the number of Immigration and Customs Enforcement personnel deployed to Minneapolis, a move Homan misleadingly claimed had been necessary to address the “violence” of protests aimed at ICE and CBP agents.
The U.S. Justice Department later announced it is opening a civil rights investigation into the execution-style killing of Pretti, a Veteran’s Administration nurse shot multiple times by two Border Patrol agents on Jan. 24, The New York Times reported.
“These are not law enforcement tactics. I don’t even know the term to use for these tactics.”
The way ICE and CBP officers have operated up to this point has been appalling and baffling to law enforcement professionals, Birkhead said about the use of deadly force and brutal crowd-control methods against demonstrators. “These are not law enforcement tactics. I don’t even know the term to use for these tactics, but my office, my deputies, are trained to use law enforcement tactics.”
Professional standards include prioritizing public safety and protecting the constitutional rights for immigrants, protesters and observers, he added.
“The other thing that really disturbs me is when Ms. Good was shot, and when Mr. Pretti was shot, it took minutes almost for them to render (medical) aid. Deputies and officers in law enforcement have a duty to intervene and render aid immediately.”
Sustainable solutions must include bringing local and state law enforcement together with ICE officials as enforcement actions are planned in any area, Birkhead said.
“Communication with ICE has not existed, and the communication with CBP is nonexistent. So, I don’t know when they’re going to show up in my county, I don’t know what assistance they need, I don’t know who they’re searching for, and so it’s hard for me to assist them if I were so inclined. If I don’t know what’s going on and they just show up, there’s no opportunity to deconflict.”
Tim Quinn
Quinn, former principle public liaison for CBP, said he hopes Homan follows through on his plan to “recalibrate” enforcement efforts in Minneapolis and elsewhere moving forward.
“What he talked about were more targeted enforcement actions against those who are threats to public safety and national security, and reducing the federal law enforcement presence. I was glad to hear him talk about meetings with local officials, with law enforcement partners, with community organizations.”
But it is important federal officials include all relevant stakeholders in the community in those discussions, not just those who agree with the administration’s operations and rhetoric, Quinn added.
“Tom was right when he said the operations we have witnessed in Minneapolis ‘had not been perfect.’ I think it was an understatement to say that they were not perfect. They were driven by reckless numbers of deportations and, unfortunately, what was sacrificed was good law enforcement and professional standards in pursuit of those numbers.”