The only thing surprising about this is that "Pancho" isn't actually the mayor of Berkeley...yet
Posted on 06/24/2012 7:01:43 AM PDT by kevcol
The Berkeley Police Department announced Tuesday that it will not honor its agreement with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to hold illegal immigrants who are being detained for minor offenses.
At a special meeting of the Berkeley City Council, Police Chief Michael Meehan clarified that a person would have to be determined suspicious — being involved in activities like item intrusion, manipulating or defacing part of an infrastructure, theft, vandalism, or cyber attack — to be detained.
The specific terms have yet to be determined. The council decided to send the policy to the city manager to review what qualifies as a criminal act, after which it will be presented to the council again at a meeting in September.
“Absolutely (the meeting) in September will determine our compliance with ICE,” said Councilmember Jesse Arreguin.
According to Berkeley Peace and Justice Commission Chair George Lippman, this policy change reflects city officials’ desire to establish one in which Berkeley puts its constitutional and human rights values first.
“I applaud the courage of the people making the decision to not comply — rather than ‘honor,’” said activist and former UC Berkeley graduate student Francisco “Pancho” Ramos Stierle. “There’s nothing honorable about kidnapping parents and hard working people — with the ICE hold.”
Stierle was arrested while meditating during a police raid of Occupy Oakland in November and detained because his student visa expired in 2008.
Through a program called Secure Communities, detainees’ fingerprints are run through the federal database, which then sends the data to ICE even if the person has not committed a criminal act. After being turned over to ICE as an undocumented immigrant, Stierle was at risk of deportation, despite having no criminal record.
Stierle’s arrest for non-violent civil disobedience is one of many cases that prompted the city council to make the changes in the department’s compliance with the ICE.
“(Implementing this policy) will address the flaws of Secure Communities to make sure that innocent people don’t get arrested,” Arreguin said.
According to the ICE website, 396,906 illegal immigrants were removed from the United States in 2011 — 54.6 percent of whom were criminal offenders. Arreguin said he considers that percentage to be flawed because of the loose definition of what is criminal.
Many community members concerned with the ICE agreement with Berkeley and other cities expressed their sentiments at the meeting.
“Unfortunately, being an immigrant is like being black in the age of slavery in the United States,” said Berkeley resident Pablo Perez. “(Illegal immigrants) have no idea what it is like to be innocent until proven guilty.”
Others expressed their sentiments about Berkeley police’s compliance with ICE.
“They are using our resources when they should be behind the real criminals, not behind people that work hard,” said Manuel de Paz, a member of the Coalition for a Safe Berkeley.
According to Lippman, although the city was not able to finalize the policies at the special meeting, a conversation about creating a human rights oriented policy was definitely started.
“Berkeley will be the first in the country to have such a policy,” Arreguin said. “This sends a message to Berkeley we should not adopt a policy in which we are giving our employees to a forced federal immigration law.”
I’d encourage all illegal aliens to move to Berkeley pronto.
“will not hold illegal immigrants for minor offenses”
...since it’s illegals, “minor” means rape, murder etc.
Minor offenses? Heck, they’re violating federal law being here in the first place. That’s not a minor offense!!!
Pancho has that Che look going on. That pulls in the babes in Berkley. Don’t cry for this wannabee Che, he is doing more than OK.
If KIng Edward Obama will not follow the law while making his own laws...then EVOLUTION Occurs.
Not only that, they should be heavily fined. Say, $10 million per illegal in their jurisdiction.
You try it and see how the feds react.
54.6 of illegal invaders were criminals...so let’s change the benchmark defining criminals
What can go wrong ?
“Any city,town,county or state that refuses to cooperate with the INS should lose every nickel it gets from Washington.”
That was SUPPOSED to happen to every college that kicked out the ROTC.
Instead, the freaks have been emboldened by the cowardice.
Why bother? Does the INS do anything with them under this administration anyway?
Geaux Berkeley Geaux!
Romney’s second act should be to ensure all Federal funds to Berkeley are immediately stopped.
“...being involved in activities like item intrusion, manipulating or defacing part of an infrastructure, theft, vandalism, or cyber attack...”
Or other common illegal alien activities like insider trading, fine art forgery, and divulging classified State Department documents to the press.
So basically, if you get arrested for anything in Berkley, just say in broken english you are here illegally and you’re good to go! Just don’t give them reason to think you are a citizen or you’ll get the book thrown at you
Yeah, let the students know how safe they'll be now that this has passed.
http://www.securityoncampus.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=271&Itemid=60
CALIFORNIA CONSTITUTION
ARTICLE 1 DECLARATION OF RIGHTS
SEC. 7. (a) A person may not be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law or denied equal protection of the laws; provided, that nothing contained herein or elsewhere in this Constitution imposes upon the State of California or any public entity, board, or official any obligations or responsibilities which exceed those imposed by the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment to the United States Constitution with respect to the use of pupil school assignment or pupil transportation. In enforcing this subdivision or any other provision of this Constitution, no court of this State may impose upon the State of California or any public entity, board, or official any obligation or responsibility with respect to the use of pupil school assignment or pupil transportation, (1) except to remedy a specific violation by such party that would also constitute a violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment to the United States Constitution, and (2) unless a federal court would be permitted under federal decisional law to impose that obligation or responsibility upon such party to remedy the specific violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment of the United States Constitution.
Except as may be precluded by the Constitution of the United States, every existing judgment, decree, writ, or other order of a court of this State, whenever rendered, which includes provisions regarding pupil school assignment or pupil transportation, or which requires a plan including any such provisions shall, upon application to a court having jurisdiction by any interested person, be modified to conform to the provisions of this subdivision as amended, as applied to the facts which exist at the time of such modification.
In all actions or proceedings arising under or seeking application of the amendments to this subdivision proposed by the Legislature at its 1979-80 Regular Session, all courts, wherein such actions or proceedings are or may hereafter be pending, shall give such actions or proceedings first precedence over all other civil actions therein.
Thank you for posting this. This ridiculous, dangerous resolution violates the Constitutional rights of Californians.
Excellent news!
Any city across the country from me that wants to make itself a magnet for illegal alien thugs and criminals is a-okay in my book.
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