Speech #1040191030

He was in a pickup truck. He was dressed casually. He was pulled over. and in this case In fact. by the Immigration and Naturalization Service. He was pulled over. asked for identification. He was told that he would have to go with the INS officers for detention. and I believe that he did not have his particular identification on him except one form of identification. and that was his city badge that showed he was the mayor of the city of Pomona. This was a gentleman from a city of about 95.000 people who was elected to be the mayor of the city of Pomona. and he was detained and was about to be taken in by these agents because they suspected that he might be undocumented. Now. I grant that that is an isolated case that rarely occurs. and most individuals who are in our law enforcement agencies do their utmost to protect all of us. and we should appreciate that. But it does happen. What we are saying is. careful. if there is a reason to breach that division. then let it be a compelling reason because local law enforcement agencies under current law are not prevented from being able to enforce the laws to stop criminal activity. And Federal law enforcement agencies have every right to go into the situation. as was expressed by the gentleman from California . earlier of a situation where 90 percent of the people in a housing complex may be undocumented. If. in fact. they are undocumented. the INS should be up on top of that building in a minute. and if they are not. then we should be getting on the INS for not doing its job. It does not require local law enforcement agencies to pull people off from patrolling the street and stopping folks who are committing other crimes to go out there enforcing the laws that the INS Is supposed to enforce. We have the ability to let local law enforcement agencies protect the citizenry. make sure we are secure. And we have. and we should provide the INS the resources so they have adequate resources to put border patrol and law enforcement agents from the INS in the field to protect us from violations of our immigration laws. So I would just say to the Members. please. consider what this is. I do not doubt. as I said. the intentions of the gentleman.