Mayor White backtracks from Mayor White: immigration screening program
Oh sure, he's already backtracked from this once before, but now he really, really means it (via the Chron's Susan Carroll):
White, who is running for U.S. Senate, now appears to be backing away from the program, saying ICE officials were "bureaucratic" in the negotiations. Vincent Picard, an ICE spokesman, declined comment on the Houston negotiations.
"Rather than letting us simply write the agreements on our own terms, they want to put language in there that we object to," White said. "We don't want anything that creates obligations on the part of the city, or that would be inconsistent with our policies not to divert patrol officers from solving crimes."
Mayor White is used to being the big chief, but being told by the feds that if he wants to participate in the feds' program, he'll have to follow the feds' rules is just too much for him to tolerate.
White said he would have preferred for the city to just have access to the government's immigration database last spring, but was told by DHS officials that he would need to sign up for 287(g) in order to use the database.
But there's even a problem with that:
However, the city so far lacks the technical capability to directly access ICE's immigration database. White said he plans to have the technical problems resolved before the end of year, when he leaves office.
When he leaves office -- meaning the next mayor will get to deal with it.
Posted by Anne Linehan @ 10/10/09 08:49 AM | Print |
Previous Entry | Home | Next Entry
ADVERTISING
DISCLAIMER
All content © 2004-09, blogHOUSTON and the respective authors.
blogHOUSTON.net is powered by Nucleus.
Site design and Nucleus customization are by Kevin Whited.