Local law enforcement officials: Trump’s executive order on immigration won’t change policing here

YAKIMA – The heads of the Yakima Valley’s two largest law enforcement agencies say their practice will not change as a result of President Trump’s executive order calling for more intense enforcement of immigration laws.

Trump’s order seeks to establish agreements with local law enforcement agencies to help enforce federal immigration laws.

But Yakima Police Chief Dominic Rizzi says his officers have a policy against any type of racial profiling, and that enforcing immigration laws should be left to federal authorities.

“To me, that’s a federal matter,” he said. “We don’t enforce federal law.”

Rizzi said if his officers were to screen suspects about their legal status, they’d have to screen everyone they stop, he said.

“And we don’t want to be in that position and we don’t enforce any federal law,” he said.

Yakima County Sheriff Brian Winter concurs, saying he’s not willing to task his deputies with screening everyone they come in contact with about their status.

That’s already done at the Yakima County jail, he said.

“I think at this point we’re going to be unchanged,” he said. “At the jail is usually when checks are made anyway. I don’t know that we ever made immigration checks at the point of arrest.”

Making inquiries at the point of arrest could hinder the reporting and investigating of crime by inciting fear in witnesses and victims about whether their status would become an issue, Rizzi and Winter said.

“And that’s what we do not want to do,” Rizzi said. “We do not want to lose that trust and we want to continue building that. We want to ensure the community that they have a safe community to live in.”