engage in our criminal justice system.
>> A bill in Washington would mandate immigration officers
arrest and detain immigrants in the country illegally who are
suspected of minor theft of $100 or more. In Beloit, where the
U.S. Census estimates, 10% of the population to be foreign
born and 20% to be Hispanic, the police chief wrote an open
letter to the city's 36,000 residents, saying officers do
not seek out people who are undocumented, but consider
immigration status only when a serious crime has been committe,
impacting public safety. The chief social media post has gone
viral with strong feelings on both sides. We sat down with
Chief André Sayles and started by asking his reaction to the
legislation. >> It's one of those things
where you have to really try to dive into it and wanting to look
and learn more about what is the actual goal of the bill. And
when you're looking at some of those minor crimes, it's one of
those things where when people are arrested for minor crimes,
what are we doing? We're overpopulating the jails and
some of those offenses, especially with our illegal
immigrants, as they say, are those things where we're holding
people in jail for minor offenses to where we can also
counsel them, talk to them about it, and then release them
instead of holding them in spaces where our violent
criminals need to be. I think one of the biggest things is
we're adding more work to an already stressful job. A job
that provides that here in the city of Beloit, we take roughly
57,000 calls a year, and that's over 1000 calls a week for our
police officers, over 100 and something calls a day. And when
we're doing that, you're going to put more strain on our
already strained law enforcement to now stay in these facilities
with individuals, to hold them for ice instead of ice, giving
guidance and saying, we will look at these certain crimes and
we will be responsible for it. You have federal government,
state government and local government, and we're putting a
lot more work on your local government to do, I believe a
job that should be on the federal side.
>> How does that legislation square with your community
policing philosophy? >> It aligns with it to some
point. But at the same time, we want to be good stewards of the
people of Beloit, our community members here in the city of
Beloit. So it's going to put that strain between our
community members and the police department, and we've worked
diligently to bring down that strain and to be inclusive to
all, and to make sure that we're working for everyone, giving
everyone a voice and an opportunity to have a
relationship with our police department, to talk with our
police department. And if we fully dive into that, we're
going to remove a great deal of people here in the city of
Beloit. >> When will your officers
cooperate with Ice? >> We will cooperate when we get
further guidance. When there are violent felon felons arrested in
those situations, we will call Ice. We will talk to them and
say, hey, this is what we have. What are our next steps? If Ice
were to come here and do a project, they typically call
them a roundup. What are we looking for? Who are we looking
for? What have they done that meets that felony threshold? And
how can we be of assistance of that? We're not saying that we
don't want to be partners with Ice. We're just saying we need
further guidance. We need further understanding. And we're
also going to need training. >> So you wrote an open letter
to residents in Beloit this month on this issue. Why did you
do that? >> I thought as the leader of
our police department and the leader of enforcing laws, I
think everyone in our community needed to hear from me to hear
our stance on it and to understand that we won't be
going out and just randomly knocking on doors to say, we
heard that this person in the home may be illegal. We need to
check your immigration status once again. That's going to add
more work to our officers. That's going to prevent us from
doing some of the things that we've done to build a better
Beloit as far as making sure our roadways are safe, making sure
that we're being partners of our students in the community
because they are our future, making sure that we're handling
the violent crime that Beloit has had a history of known for.
We are a city that went from having over 100 confirmed
shootings in this city to where we're in the 20s now, and that
is the hard work that the men and women of the police
department has done with the help of our community members.
So if we tarnish that relationship, we're going to go
back to those days of don't go to Beloit.
>> What has been the reaction from the community, the people
that I know that live in the city of Beloit has had a
positive reaction to the messag. >> They appreciate me being
transparent, explaining what we're going to do as a police
department and how we're going to continue to cooperate with
our community members. But I think a lot of it has been
probably a lot of people that's not from the city of Beloit,
weighing in on some things that I would just say they probably
really didn't understand, or they took bits and pieces of
that message and created a bigger message.
reaction on the part of immigrants in your city?
>> I really haven't had too many conversations, but I did speak
to one of our Hispanic population leaders in the city
of Beloit, and she was very appreciative of the message that
we put out and understood why I put that message out and
understood that by me putting that message out, it received a
little bit of stress from our Hispanic population in the city
of Beloit. And it's unfortunate that it seems that it's
directly, directly pointed only at the Hispanic population. But
when you look at immigration, you have to look at all of the
world. You know, we have people from China that may be illegal
immigrants. El Salvador, you have people that are from the
Philippines and things of that nature. So I think the
collective message is all that may be illegal. Immigrants don't
have to worry about us just knocking on their door, checking
their immigration status. If we get to a point to where they're
involved in a serious crime, that may come up, but we're not
just going to go out and ask for their immigration status.
>> So you said that you're waiting for guidance. Yes. On
all of this. And yet, what are your concerns given what has
been roiling around in the headlines?
>> No concerns as of yet. I'm a person that likes to sit back
and wait and watch and look and get my own facts from documents
that's provided for local law enforcement. And if I have
concerns out of that, then express those concerns to the
person that may have sent it to us from the federal government
that we think needs to change as a local law enforcement agency,
or can you provide further guidance on what you're saying
in these certain situations? >> If the guidance and the laws
say that you do, in fact have to interact with the immigrant
population in this city by way of going door to door and asking
for their documentation, you will uphold the law, I assume?
>> Yes, most definitely. But once again, I'm going to make
sure we are very detailed in our response to Ice or the federal
government to make sure that our officers that are going to be
held accountable for violating people's natural born rights,
that may be legal citizens of the city of Beloit, but someone
assumes that they're not. So we want to make sure that we are
doing things best, practice and making sure that we're getting
the guidance from the federal government to make sure that we
are upholding everyone's natural born rights. Our thing is, we
want to make sure that we are providing everyone an
opportunity to feel safe in this community of Beloit, and to make
sure that the victims are not continued to be victims of
crimes that they refuse to report because they feel that
we're going to check their illegal or their immigration
status before we make a case against the person that they're
calling on. >> Chief, thanks very much.