Law enforcement and public safety in the United States are primarily local government functions that are typically the most visible and touch the lives of citizens in a direct way. In municipalities with large multiethnic populations, this visibility and bureaucratic discretion interact with local demographic change to make for a potentially sensitive and challenging job for police. Some immigrant ethnic groups, in their home countries, dealt with law enforcement officials who were corrupt or who used force indiscriminately; others lived in fear of government authorities more generally. Moreover, cultural practices among ethnic populations are often distinctive and may make them ”stand out” in some communities. With their uniforms and patrol cars, police officers are probably the most obvious, and frequently encountered, representatives of local government.
Police are also quintessential ”street-level bureaucrats”; although operating under a complex set of legal rules, they have considerable discretion in applying those rules to particular incidents and situations that occur on their rounds. Thus, the organizational culture of police departments and their standard operating procedures can differ dramatically from community to community (Ibarra 2003; Smith 1986). This article highlights some of the most pressing problems in policing multiethnic communities.
Police-Community Relations
Because of the constantly shifting and sometimes contradictory expectations of and demands for police services in multiethnic communities, police actions help set the tone for civic relationships between residents and local government. When the racial and ethnic demographics begin to change with the influx of immigrants, tensions between police and nonwhite residents often are heightened (Alpert and Dunham 1988). Ethnic change in neighborhoods has long been associated with social conditions that can make the job of police officers more challenging. In the popular media accounts of big-city ethnic neighborhoods, images such as youth gangs, extortion of small businesses, and fear or avoidance of the police are common. Moreover, reluctance to seek help from the police or to inform the police of criminal activity continues to be a significant problem in some ethnic communities (Davis and Erez 1998; Poole and Pogrebin 1990). Explanations proffered for such reluctance include lack of familiarity with and trust in law enforcement, perceived nonresponsiveness and ineffectiveness of police services, and views of law enforcement personnel as intimidating, coercive, and discriminatory.
One of the most controversial issues associated with the rapid growth of ethnic communities involves problems posed by undocumented immigrants. Of special concern is the question of whether foreign government identifications—particularly the matricula consular issued by the Mexican government for Mexicans abroad— may be used as a valid form of identification for a variety of official purposes in the United States. These identification cards have been issued since 1871 by the Mexican Consulate to Mexican citizens abroad. The card, which resembles a driver’s license, includes a picture, birth date, address in the United States of the individual, a phone number of the issuing consular office, and (on cards issued since March 2002) several visible and invisible security features. Cards typically expire after five years. Proponents say that the acceptance of the cards gives Mexican citizens the opportunity to open bank accounts, use libraries, and document their identification for minor police infractions. Without identification, they say, individuals could be jailed for even reporting or witnessing a crime.
The role of police departments is fiercely debated. Some critics of the card believe that police officers should contact federal immigration officials on the presentation of a consular ID. However, many police and sheriff departments throughout California accept the card as a valid identification document. They note that the cards can help them to increase trust among immigrant groups in reporting crimes, and that, when ”pulling someone over” or questioning them for a crime, it is better to have some form of ID than none at all. Despite pressure from the Mexican government, the matricula consular is not recognized as proof of identity at the federal level in the United States. Fourteen states, with varying acceptance in some municipalities across the states, recognize the matricula consular as a valid form of identification. Colorado was the first state to enact legislation to bar the acceptance of the cards by state and municipal agencies; New York followed suit by officially refusing to accept the cards as proof of identity, citing security concerns regarding terrorism. By contrast, Los Angeles city officials have announced plans to accept ID cards from other countries. Mayor James Hahn, reportedly seeing the matricula consular as a model, signed an ordinance calling on city officials to develop safeguards toward accepting identification cards issued from the other 87 consulates in Los Angeles (Nash 2004).
A related issue that has received some attention is whether local police departments should contact federal immigration authorities (now part of the Department of Homeland Security) after determining that a suspect is in the United States illegally. For instance, the U.S. House of Representatives in 2003 debated the Clear Law Enforcement for Criminal Alien Removal (CLEAR) Act, which would authorize local and state police departments to ”investigate, apprehend, detain, or remove aliens” and would withhold federal incarceration assistance to those authorities who failed to do so within two years of the act’s passage. [The bill was not reported out of committee in the 108th Congress (2003-2004) and, as of this writing (2005), has yet to be reintroduced in subsequent terms.]
Many municipal, county, and state law enforcement agencies have resisted such measures, arguing that they should not be in the business of immigration law enforcement. Rick Turboch, president of the California Police Chiefs Association, stated in a letter to Attorney General John Ashcroft in 2002, ”It is the strong opinion of [CPCA] that in order for local and state law enforcement organizations to be effective partners with their communities, it is imperative that they not be placed in the role of detaining and arresting individuals based solely on a change in their immigration status” (Richardson 2002). Because of such strong sentiments and broad opposition, only a small fraction of local law enforcement agencies cooperate with their federal counterparts on immigration-related matters. Still, those police departments that accept Mexican consular IDs as valid forms of identification typically refrain from contacting federal authorities when a person in custody is an undocumented immigrant. Research indicates that the inclination of police departments to contact federal authorities decreases with the Latino share of nonwhite residents. This relationship may be due to increased political clout of Latinos in areas where they constitute a larger share of the population. It is also possible that police departments in these cities may have adopted more permissive approaches out of a concern for establishing trust among residents of Latino communities.
Although some departments are willing to accept consular IDs for identifying witnesses and processing minor offenders, they are less willing to do so for more serious offenses that require detention. Police are yet to be convinced of the merits of consular IDs because of the potential for forgery and the problem of insufficient history linked to an identification card. Some departments reluctantly use the card if it is the only form of photo identification available, but they still view it as an unreliable way to authenticate someone’s identity.
Day Laborers
Some cities have encountered conflicts regarding day laborers—individuals who gather, often outdoors, to seek manual labor jobs or other employment for the day. Without formal employment, these individuals—who may or may not have legal residency status in the United States— seek work from budget-minded employers who have learned the locations for a reliable source of eager and cheap temporary workers. Certainly not all day laborers are ethnic minorities, but the issue is closely associated with ethnic immigration, both legal and illegal. Although day labor has a long history in the United States, this issue has risen to a level of community controversy in several Western states (for example, California, Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas), judging by numerous media reports. Concerns have been raised over a host of issues, ranging from traffic congestion, crime, and visual blight in day-labor areas, to shakedowns and unsafe working conditions on the part of employers. Local police are sometimes asked to respond to these concerns.
Some city governments have made policy decisions to try to reduce day-labor activity or regulate its location. Other cities have attempted to move the activity off the streets by supporting hiring calls, often in partnership with nonprofit groups. Finally, some cities have attempted to make it illegal for day laborers to solicit work. An antisolicitation ordinance in the city of Agoura Hills, California, was challenged in state appellate court in 1994 but upheld, clearing the way for similar measures in other cities. In 2000, however, a federal judge ruled that a similar ordinance in Los Angeles County was unconstitutional, violating the First and Fourteenth Amendments.
Clearly, the infrastructure capacity of a city and its political leanings shape local policy responses to immigrants. Some cities are simply pressed by circumstances into developing a policy. The city council of Thousand Oaks, California, which for more than fifteen years had fielded numerous residents’ complaints about the gathering of day laborers, voted in 2002 to construct a day-labor hiring site on public greenbelt land, providing such simple facilities as picnic tables, bicycle racks, toilets, and driveways designated as pickup zones. The deputy city manager explained, ”We can’t make the problem go away. We can’t arrest the day laborers and contractors and make them go away” (”New Hiring Site for Laborers Open” 2002). However, emotions often run high on such approaches. One resident of Thousand Oaks wrote in an editorial that because most of the laborers are illegal immigrants, ”what we are truly hiding in the greenbelt area is the fact that we are publicly endorsing an illegal activity” (Fisher 2002). While many cities with large immigrant populations have ”visible” day-labor markets, no policy response has gained clear popularity, except perhaps avoidance of the issue. The police often become de facto policy makers, trying to balance the competing demands for community policing that address both the specific needs of the multiethnic community and the broader concerns of the host community (McDonald 2003).
Informal Businesses
Many multiethnic communities serve as both magnets and zones of transition for foreign immigrants. Immigrants are a select group, by virtue of their decision to uproot themselves from familiar surroundings and move to the United States. For many, economic advancement is the major goal, and many immigrants historically have engaged in entrepreneurship—run-ning grocery stores or markets, operating restaurants, providing personal care services (massages, manicures, hair styling, and so on), or managing motels, for example. However, some newcomers with few formal resources, little access to credit, and incomplete knowledge of business regulation in their new country may resort to running small businesses informally or ”under the table” (Kusenbach and Ibarra 2001).
Undocumented immigrants may also engage in informal businesses in an attempt to avoid detection by authorities. Although many such businesses are fairly invisible to the outside community, in other cases—as with day laborers—conflicts have arisen with neighbors and local authorities. Home-based businesses, such as car repair shops or beauty salons, street peddlers selling food or flowers in public areas, personal service providers operating without a business license, and other gray market enterprises, are tolerated in some communities but considered nuisances in others. It is possible that the presence of more immigrants makes unlicensed businesses more prevalent and thus more of a target for municipal code enforcement, either by building or health inspectors or by the police. Cities with higher shares of immigrant residents tend to be more aggressive in citing informal businesses, which may foster economic hardships and cultural tensions within multiethnic communities.
Police Review Boards
Another potentially important issue in diverse communities, given the potential conflicts inherent in policing, is whether residents have any forum or feedback mechanism to discuss the performance or practices of the local police. One potential forum would be to contact elected officials regarding concerns about the police. However, immigrant destination cities tend to have disproportionately few elected officials from Hispanic or Asian backgrounds, compared to the overall population. This might reduce the likelihood that some immigrants will contact officials because of perceived cultural or language barriers.
Another forum in some communities is the police review board or citizen review commission, an officially constituted group that has the power to review complaints and allegations by residents against police officers and recommend remedies or punishments. Research shows that review boards are less common in cities with higher proportions of immigrants. Because there is no reason to suspect that immigrants have a distinctive preference against the formation of review boards, it may be the case that immigrants have fewer political skills or less political power to mobilize on behalf of the creation of such a board.
In many ways, police departments are more proactive in their outreach efforts in multiethnic communities than are other municipal agencies or even elected officials. Many officials (elected or appointed) know little about the day-to-day problems residents face in multiethnic communities. Government officials often bemoan the lack of involvement by immigrants in local politics and elections, yet face-to-face meetings between elected officials and ethnic business owners or advocates are rare. Moreover, few governmental documents are translated into the multiple languages typical of multiethnic communities.
By contrast, local police agencies have often succeeded in learning about various ethnic communities and have gained a modicum of trust in many neighborhoods. Still, police interest in outreach toward ethnic communities is limited. Some departments’ enforcement activities may exacerbate the difficulties residents experience in some ethnic neighborhoods. A police agency may aggressively enforce some ordinances that are less tenable in areas of overcrowded housing, such as prohibitions on fixing cars on the street or on storing personal property that is visible from public sidewalks. A municipal prohibition on loitering may mean that day laborers who often congregate in specific locations for drive-by work opportunities are dispersed from the street by police; moreover, some police departments are particularly vigilant in cracking down on informal businesses, such as street vendors and unlicensed home enterprises.
Some may argue that these measures are based solely on concerns with public health, quality of life, and safety, and the collective community ultimately benefits from the enforcement of such laws. Yet if informal businesses and overcrowding are inevitable aspects of living in multiethnic communities (especially given the present state of wages, rents, and profit margins on ethnic-run businesses), then the enforcement of such ordinances increases both the costs of doing business and the costs of simply living. Many local governments have simply failed to address the issue of whether ordinances should be altered to suit the changing dynamics of the population and the local economy. As a result, police outreach to multiethnic communities is limited and structured by the department’s overall concern with ”quality-of-life” issues. The police role becomes one of conflict management with little hope for conflict resolution (Herbert 1995). And while the policing style may be described as problem oriented, there are few opportunities and even less resources available to law enforcement for actual problem solving. Such reactive approaches may simply reflect a benign neglect policy of local government, functionally restricting or preventing movement toward ethnic empowerment, where communities have a stake in the formulation of municipal policies.
Past studies have shown that although ethnic minorities are a sizable proportion of the resident population, they have remained relatively powerless in the political process for various reasons, including the lack of English proficiency, the relative marginality of organizations serving ethnic communities, and the sizable proportion of recent arrivals and undocumented immigrants among the foreign-born. Given these barriers to civic and political participation, institutional policies and practices can go a long way toward ensuring that ethnic minority needs are considered in the decision-making processes of local governments. This is of critical importance with regard to the role of police in American society, because police are in close daily touch with city populations and depend on cooperation and information from the public to do their jobs. America’s demographic dynamism seems to ensure that local police agencies will be under nearly continuous pressure to respond and adapt to the changing needs and demands of multiethnic communities.
