Phoenix police officers are largely failing to comply with a year-old policy that lets them question people about their immigration status, undercutting the effectiveness of a plan aimed at helping crack down on illegal immigration, reports the Arizona Republic. The policy, adopted partly in response to criticism that the city provided sanctuary to undocumented immigrants by restricting police officers’ ability to ask about a person’s legal status, gives the officers more discretion to question people and to notify federal officials when they encounter a suspected illegal immigrant.
But the Republic found that officers frequently don’t ask people they arrest about their immigration status as required, and they rarely report suspected illegal to Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Officers also are not always following the policy requirement to document their contact with ICE officials and to get a supervisor’s approval before turning suspected illegal immigrants over to federal officials.