Toughest town around

Mayor Schock told us at the recent forum that Elgin is doing everything legally possible to curb the presence of illegal aliens in town. He challenged us to name any town that is doing MORE.

Well, let’s give you a little chronology on immigration enforcement in Elgin.

May 2006

Here’s where the enforcement strategy comes in. On May 10, 2006 I received an E-mail response from Lt. Cecil Smith of the Elgin Police. My question was regarding the immigration status of people booked at the jail. Lt. Smith replied, “We do not determine the legal or illegal status of any person being processed. Therefore to asnwer (sic) your question”what do you do next?”. The processing/booking of the person would continue. They would be charge (sic) with the appropriate offense and he/she is either allowed to post bail and released or taken to bond call before a judge. We do not handle immigration issues.”

June 2006

On June 14, 2006 I spoke at the Elgin city council meeting and presented each council member with a binder of data and a list of recommendations to improve our cooperation with federal agencies regarding illegal alien enforcement. My recommendations included:

• Fraudulent document training
  
• Enforcement of Fraudulent ID laws
• Instructions about the Mexican Drivers License
• Use of the ICE database to screen people booked
• Notification of ICE when an illegal alien is in the city lock up
• Assisting ICE with transport of illegal aliens to ICE facilities
• Becoming a 287g agency.

My request was ignored, so I came back and spoke again…and again…and again…

July 2006

On July 26, 2006 Elgin Police Chief Lisa Womack presented her recommendation to the city council: Do nothing beyond what is already being done. She said they had a good working relationship with ICE and saw no need to do more.

The council members did not engage her in discussion, but simply accepted the report.

I continued to speak at council meetings for several weeks in a row.

(Note: In June of 2006 Elgin could have applied for a 287g partnership. The waiting list was short and they were processing applications around the country. The waiting list later grew to hundreds of police departments requesting 287g training.)

January 2008 (A YEAR AND A HALF LATER)

The city issues its “Four Initiatives” press release. Item #1 was applying for ICE ACCESS.

ICE ACCESS isn’t really a program per se. It is more like a menu of services. It is a list of the various programs available from the federal government that may be of use to a local law enforcement agency.

ICE ACCESS was nothing more than a request to sit down with ICE, look at the programs together and sign an agreement for one or more of those programs.

We waited. Nothing happened.

January 2009 (Another YEAR gone by)

I made a Freedom of Information request to the city on January 26, 2009 in an attempt to determine what efforts had been made on ICE ACCESS and what results had been achieved. On February 2, 2009 the city attorney’s office responded that they had made a handful of phone calls and requests for an ICE ACCESS meeting. But no meeting was ever held.

February 2010 (Yet another YEAR gone by)

Police Chief Lisa Womack continues to hold to her position that the city and the police department are doing all that they can.

On February 24, 2010 Womack is talking on a conference call with other police chiefs regarding immigration enforcement. Here’s what the Daily Herald reported:

"If there was a local solution to this issue, and this goes back to my Texas roots, the border states would have already figured it out," said Womack, who was police chief in Sugarland, Texas, before coming to Elgin in 2005. "In my opinion, there is not a local solution."

…and "Immigration law and enforcement is a federal law enforcement matter ... We have no one voice on this issue and it has been polarizing at times for this community."

source: http://www.dailyherald.com/article/20100226/news/302269953/#ixzz1GxoBEPWi

April 2010

Lisa Womack is released from her duties as Elgin Police Chief

Do you see any leadership or aggressive pursuit of federal help on the part of Mayor Ed Schock? From June 2006 to April of 2010, the only success story on immigration enforcement in Elgin is the 100% screening that AFLA called for.

And the screening is a disappointment because they never DID ANYTHING with the data. Here they had specific detail they could have used to put pressure on Springfield and Washington, and all they did was sit on it.

When Jeff Swoboda takes over as chief of police things begin to happen. Here’s a couple of articles on the subject.

April 29, 2010, on the heels of an ICE sweep:

Elgin Police Chief Jeff Swoboda said the sweep was a good example of how his department is working with ICE.

"The Elgin Police Department will work with any federal agency that will help us in ridding the city of gang members and reducing crime," he said.

(Daily Herald)

On October 26, 2010 the Daily Herald ran this story:

Elgin has a new means to root out gang members, but the city's police chief warns it's not a cure-all by any means.

The department has assigned a detective to be a member of the Public Safety/Gang Unit task force the operates under the Immigrations and Customs Enforcement office, or ICE.

“We're the first local agency to have an officer in the unit. It's another tool in our toolbox,” said Police Chief Jeff Swoboda. “

Their No. 1 charge is going after gang members.”

Swoboda also said the department also has an officer that works with ICE's Document and Benefit Fraud Task Force, which investigates stolen social security numbers and fake cards.

Remember when I went to the city council in June of 2006 asking for more involvement in the fraudulent ID problem? Well, we finally get something FOUR YEARS LATER!

And then on January 24, 2011 the Herald reported:

A two-day initiative dubbed “Operation Clean Sweep” allowed Elgin police officers to make 87 warrant arrests in cooperation with almost 20 federal, state, county and local agencies. The effort was one of the largest the city has ever initiated and one the Elgin Police Department is calling a tremendous success.

About 250 law enforcement personnel worked Friday and about 150 worked Saturday in a targeted sweep to reconcile outstanding warrants. Out of the 4,200 total warrants, Elgin chose to go after 225 people, apprehending about 40 percent of them.

In conclusion, it appears to me that after two years of fighting us on immigration enforcement, Ed Schock should not step out in front of Chief Swoboda’s parade and call it his own leadership. That’s just not right.