It seems that the incoming Milwaukee Police Chief made the suggestion that the current policy of not asking about immigration status was acceptable.  I'm sure there are many people who are currently digging through his previous department's policies, looking to go after him on this.  It will be interesting to see if anything actually develops out of this.  But before everyone gets their panties in a bunch over it, I'm going to quote out of a post from a year ago that nobody responded to:

Let's face it.  Illegal immigration isn't going to decrease one iota simply because local cops might ask the question.  In a year, maybe one or two illegals will be caught and deported because of local cops, and that's in a good year.  The reality is that breaking immigration laws ranks pretty law as far as crime goes.  Murder... rape... grand theft... these are the things that we want our local law enforcement to go after more than illegal immigration.  It's also a fact that areas with high concentrations of illegal immigrants tend to have higher crime.  This is not only because of poverty, but because they are easier to victimize given the fact they're less likely to report crime to the police.  Some of these criminals are illegals and some of them aren't.  Some of the victims are illegals, and some of them aren't.  But illegal immigrants are witnesses.

But witnesses will never come forward with what they know as long as they think they'll get deported for their trouble.  So if local law enforcement publicly announced that they won't question your status if you come forward with information regarding crimes... is that a bad thing?  Is it worth not catching a couple people who jumped the fence, if it means that a few murderers and rapists are put behind bars instead?

Many people would have you believe that local police not asking immigration status is a pure and simple matter pushing for amnesty, and nothing else matters.  The reality is that there is a trade off to be made here between policing crime in a community, and policing immigration law... and one can directly affect the other.  When you have a great deal of distrust between a community, and those who are supposed to protect it, then everyone suffers.  What should the priority of local police be?