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Editorial: Not afraid of tough job
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The Collier County Sheriff’s Office is ahead of the curve when it comes to immigration.
Rather than say “it’s not our job” or defer to federal authorities, the Sheriff’s Office for the past few years has been reaching out to the feds in the spirit of teamwork and cooperation to get dangerous illegals off our streets and off local taxpayers’ backs.
The Sheriff’s Office has championed extensive training so that deputies have a working knowledge of immigration policies and know how to work with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) as partners rather than blame them for illegals’ presence.
The progressive path chosen by Sheriff Don Hunter in the wake of Sept. 11, 2001, stands out against the background of a national survey of police chiefs conducted by the private Police Foundation, which helps agencies share information and solve problems.
The chiefs said they prefer to think of illegal immigration as a matter that is out of their hands.
Some of the chiefs cited manpower shortages.
Others cited the need for specialty work with such a complicated body of law.
Still others cited concerns about trust. They said they did not want to antagonize illegals who they have come to depend on as crime tipsters.
That one boggles the mind.
Those kinds of blinders are not on in Collier County, where in the past week 25 illegals with violent criminal records were reported rounded up by the Sheriff’s Office and ICE working together.
The CCSO realizes that saying it is “someone else’s problem” would become a self-fulfilling prophecy. That “someone else” would be those of us who obey the law and ask of others only that they do the same.
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