By Melissa Shriver
Thursday, October 11, 2007 at 1:02 p.m.
Read more: Local, State, National, Crime, Business, Community, Politics, Khqa, Factfinder, Illegal Aliens, Hannibal, Hannibal Police Department, Homeland Security, Matt Blunt, Ins, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Ice
In the past several weeks you'll remember KHQA has told you about the illegal immigrant worker found at Continental Cement in Hannibal, and the illegal immigrant in Beardstown accused of murder on Monday.
The issue of illegal immigrants is being discussed here locally as well as on the national front.
Now, Missouri Governor Matt Blunt has a plan to deal with the illegal immigration problem, because he says the federal government has dropped the ball.
We broke down his idea for this KHQA FactFinder report.
First, Missouri already requires all law enforcement officers to check the immigration status of all suspects they arrest.
Also, all Missouri businesses which benefit from state tax programs or incentives must certify in writing that their workforce, plus any contractors and subcontractors, do not employ illegal immigrants.
Those steps are already in effect.
The biggest change is the Governor's plan to deputize all Missouri Highway Patrol officers to enforce federal immigration laws.
Right now, only federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement workers have the authority to transport illegal immigrants into custody.
Here's the problem KHQA has discovered with that. Illegal immigrants often are let go because there's no federal official available to transport them. So deputizing state law enforcement officers would pick up where ICE, Immigration and Custom Enforcement, leaves off.
Local police and sheriff's departments in the state also would have the option to deputize their officers.
Here's the pros and cons of this plan for the Hannibal police department.
The Hannibal Police Department encounters at least one illegal immigrant every month.
Chief Lyndell Davis says he's carefully considering taking the Governor up on his proposal to deputize his officers.
"We'll stop a vehicle and you may have 20 to 30 people get out of a small vehicle or van and it was difficult in communication as well as finding their legal status," Chief Davis said. "And sometimes we found they were illegal and you'd have to call and find someone with INS, now ICE."
The most publicized illegal immigrant in the Hannibal area was an employee of a subcontractor here at Continental Cement. He was detained for hours before being released.
If you are deputized, how will that help you?
"Obviously the nearest location is St. Louis; by the time you actually get ahold of an agent and get one up here to take care of the problem, several hours would have passed and also, if you have the issue where they simply won't deal with it," Chief Davis said. "Because they don't have enough staff to come up here, not enough facilities to house them in and have no way to get up there, it's easy for us to take care of situation and transport them where they need to go because they want to remove whatever threat there may be in our community. And somebody here illegally, even though people came here for the best reasons to improve their life but you also get a lot of criminals and people of less than desirable instincts in the community."
A possible case in point, illegal alien Jesus Gomez, a suspect in a recent murder in Beardstown.
At the beginning of the investigation he gave a false name, law officers later discovered he's in the U.S. illegally.
"Right now, most local law enforcement's hands are tied. If they have criminal history in another country or they're here illegally, there's not a whole lot we can do besides contact the ICE agents and sometimes they can't help us," Chief Davis said.
The main reason Chief Davis is considering this plan, it would allow his officers to step in to protect the community when federal immigration officers are nowhere to be found.
We also asked Chief Davis about the possible cons of this plan for his department. As with most plans, they are time and money.
Chief Davis told us he's just starting to look at the impact of deputizing his officers. He should get a lot more answers when the Governor sends more information to police departments around the state.
But that won't happen until the Department of Homeland Security in Washington approves the plan to deputize officers.
