US extends immigrant database to police

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Anticrime alliance drawing praise and opposition

Federal immigration agents are forging new alliances with local law enforcement agencies across Massachusetts in an effort to crack down on hard-core criminals, spurring anxiety and applause within immigrant communities.

The Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency has been taking its message on the road from Concord to Cape Cod, offering so-called ICE 101 presentations to the state's district attorneys, probation officers, and, most recently, large police departments, including those in Lowell and Lynn.

Some departments have eagerly signed on. In recent months, federal agents have trained select Framingham police, Barnstable County sheriffs, and state correction officers to detect and detain illegal immigrants for possible deportation. And, with immigration officials' encouragement, police and other agencies across the state are making thousands of calls to a federal clearinghouse in Vermont to check the status and identity of immigrants.

In some cases, the alliance is initiated by the municipalities. In other instances, it involves encouragement from the immigration agency to take advantage of its expertise. In almost all cases, the fledgling partnerships have stirred controversy about their impact on Massachusetts' rapidly growing immigrant populations at a time when illegal immigration is a key issue in the presidential campaign.

"It's not like we're forcing anything on them," said Bruce Foucart, the special agent in charge of Immigration and Customs Enforcement's office of investigations in Boston, which covers New England. "If we can establish a rapport with the police, district attorneys, and the communities, it's only going to benefit public safety as a whole. We've established some pretty good relationships, officer to officer, agent to agent."

Immigration authorities say the partnerships are helping cities and towns pluck criminals from their streets, and some local immigrant advocates agree. But statewide immigration advocates fear the push is opening a new front in immigration enforcement and deterring immigrants from reporting crimes.

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