This has created quite a bit of heartburn at the NY Times
They Were Accused of Illegal Fishing. They Ended Up in ICE Detention.
Standing along the edge of a canal near Fort Lauderdale, Fla., Edguin Morales Aguirre had just cast a line when officers with the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission approached him and two of his friends. They spotted a bucket holding egg-bearing blue crabs, which are illegal to have in the state.
After running checks on their IDs, the officers summoned immigration agents to detain Mr. Morales and one of his friends, who were surprised to learn that the officers were working with federal immigration authorities.
“This never used to happen,” Mr. Morales said. “Before, if they caught you fishing in a place you weren’t supposed to, they would just issue you a citation.”
In Republican-led states, officers who hand out fishing licenses, inspect produce and investigate financial crimes have been deputized by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, using their contact with local residents on a day-to-day basis to broaden the reach of President Trump’s mass deportation campaign.
See, it looks like a regular article. First you get the “human interest”, but, then it goes right to the Fish Wrap caterwauling about non-federal law enforcement helping to enforce federal law. Do they cry when local, county, and state law enforcement calls Los Federales when they catch others who broke federal laws? Nope. Only when it is illegal aliens.
The increased cooperation among states that have embraced Mr. Trump’s immigration agenda is part of a federal program known as 287(g), which pays state and local agencies to assist with immigration enforcement. Once largely reserved for local police and sheriffs’ offices to increase ICE’s access to local jails, it has expanded under Mr. Trump to include unusual agencies like state agriculture departments, gaming commissions, fish and wildlife agencies, and alcohol control offices.
How horrible!
But these agencies have little experience carrying out immigration arrests, which can get contentious and even violent. Some incidents involving ICE officers have led to fatal shootings. Advocates have criticized the enlistment of the agencies, saying it increases the risk of officer misconduct and deepens fears in immigrant communities that people could be detained by seemingly innocuous authorities.
So illegals can get violent, requiring force to detain them? Hence why it is a lot safer to arrest them in places like courthouses.
Civil rights advocates have long denounced the 287(g) program, questioning the qualifications of state and local officers for conducting immigration enforcement. Although the federal government previously required several weeks of in-person training, the Trump administration scaled back to 40 hours of virtual training for deputized officers making immigration arrests in their communities.
So detaining illegals is more difficult that other people? Like they are super violent? Huh.
More than 29,300 state and local officers have been granted the authority to question people about their immigration status and make arrests, according to the Department of Homeland Security. That is nearly five times the number of deportation officers that ICE had before Mr. Trump’s return to office.
We need more! Anyhow, the whining continues on for quite some time from the Times, which just can’t stand illegals being arrested.
Our good friends on the left are perfectly fine with the requirements for hunting and fishing licenses and restricting what you can and cannot harvest, and if they find acceptable law enforcement for such minor things, surely they should be OK with law enforcement on the much greater crime of living in our country illegally.