The response from the mayor and city council to our request for 287g was a bait-and-switch. They said, we’ll do ICE ACCESS. Well, is it a good deal for the citizens of Elgin?
In a word, NO!
ICE ACCESS is a menu of programs available from Homeland Security. (In fact, 287g is in there.) Part two of ICE ACCESS consists of someone from ICE sitting down with the Elgin Police and offering parts of ACCESS that might work for us.
That sounds reasonable enough, but we still want the city to sign up for 287g! We don’t want ICE to sit down with Chief Womack and talk her out of applying for 287g. Time’s a wastin’, folks. If we applied today it is a two year waiting list. And it will only get longer.
The other thing about ICE ACCESS is that there isn’t much of anything new they have to offer. There is the CAP officer program which our elected officials already nixed. There are programs that really only apply at borders and ports (like BEST and Customs).
There are Fugitive Operations Teams. These guys go around and pick up those absconders who defied deportation orders. That’s old news. The Herald did a story on that team back in May.
There’s intellectual property rights. I met those guys at a business convention a year ago. Not much impact in Elgin.
The LESC is the database we’d use for 100% screening. The city has been using that for at least 18 months now. (They just don’t use it as much as we’d like and they aren’t accountable to anyone for their screening.)
Operation Community Shield was just in the news a couple of weeks ago when they did a gang sweep in the area. 21 bad guys were picked up by ICE. Carpentersville worked closely with them. Not a bad program; just no new substance.
When you go point-by-point with the ICE ACCESS program we either already know about it or it doesn’t apply to us. In other words, if we adopt ICE ACCESS it will be business as usual in Elgin. Nothing will change. And I’m sorry to say I feel that is exactly the way the city council likes it.
And on the face of it Homeland Security told the world that they created the ACCESS the package for one reason: “…in response to the widespread interest from local law enforcement agencies that have requested ICE partnerships through the 287(g) program.”
If you get the chance, let our elected leaders know that we still want 287g, and the sooner the better.
Here’s a link explaining ICE ACCESS: http://www.ice.gov/pi/news/newsreleases/articles/070821dc.htm
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Chief Womack is in the Courier today talking about illegals. "Local law enforcement has been frustrated with this for a good number of years," said Elgin Police Chief Lisa Womack. "If there was a local solution, I can assure you somebody in local law enforcement would have already figured it out."
ReplyDeleteHow about, if local law enforcement would quantify the problem and insist on federal enforcement?
So, does Womack's statement imply surrender? Does it mean this is an unsolvable problem? The entire tone was, "Live with it because this is all we get."
Beeter's comment about productivity is nonsense. The CAP officer in Costa Mesa has tagged over 500 illegals in a year. Sounds pretty productive to me.
They don't understand that the name of the game at this point is to put pressure on the feds to provide staff and equipment to deal with the problem Washington has created. You don't create that pressure by letting ICE dictate what they will do for Elgin.
They just don't get it a EPD or city hall.
~Doug
Chief WOMACK the "Sugarland Wonder". Did it occur to anyone why womack was appointed Chief of police for Elgin? She had less experience than most of the condidates interviewed for the job but she spoke a language that was sweet music to the ears of the Elgin officials. Her thinking is just like theirs and she is easy to control. She is a robot for them. She is an expert in creating corruption and sweeping it under the rug and she has a smooth but condesending personna. chief womack has never performed as a chief prior to her comig to Elgin so her coming to an unfamiliar community expecting to clean this town up was a huge mistake. First she is not a one man band she has to work with the staff she inherited and she cannot be every where and what she has to work with have been proven to be some of the most brutal and corrupt police in this area. I don't think she is up to a job of this magnitude and she certainly is working from a black hole. The officals and their looney tune legal department cannot advise her or any one else on what to do legally so that leaves the city in a mess. The one thing the city is good at is spending the citizens tax dollars on endless silly litigations brought on by their lack of compentence. Chief Womack will never find a solution to any thing as long as she is under the thumb of this crooked leadership. The statement that she made about law enforcement "If there was a local solution, I can assure you somebody would have figured it out" Wrong! There is no one capable of figuring out any thing except how to brutalize citizens in the dark of the night and in the confines of the police department. I don't know why anyone would be surprised at her "live with it because this is all we get" attitude. She comes from a border town and this is what she is accustom to as far as being over run by illegals. As long as she is chief she is not in the danger zone unless going back to sugarland is a danger zone. Beeter is angry he is not the Chief he is goofy and not a part of the equasion. He certainly can't solve any problems he does not have the capacity to understand the concept.
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