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Immigrants 'afraid' to report crimes

New laws make many reluctant to call authorities

Fernando Quintero, Rocky Mountain News

Published September 2, 2006 at midnight

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When Andrea Lopez's husband and son came home with red welts on their bodies after young thugs shot them with a BB gun in their southwest Denver neighborhood, the first thing she wanted to do was call police.

But her husband quickly changed her mind.

"He said he hadn't gotten a good look at the boys who shot him and my son, and that police would want him to identify them," she said.

But Lopez said that wasn't the real reason they didn't want the cops involved.

The Lopezes are illegal immigrants. They were afraid to come in contact with authorities for fear of being deported.

Concern that undocumented immigrants are underreporting crime has grown since Colorado passed a package of anti-illegal immigration laws that are being touted as the nation's toughest. Immigrant advocates say the new laws have produced a climate of fear in Colorado.

In August, the search for a convicted sex offender who initially was believed to have abducted two Avon children was stymied, police said, because illegal immigrants with potentially helpful information were afraid to talk. Police later determined that the 15-year-old girl and her 11-year-old brother went willingly with their mother's boyfriend and returned on their own to their grandmother in Honduras.

"My gut feeling is that (underreporting of crimes) is occurring, particularly with domestic violence incidents," said Denver City Council member Rosemary Rodriguez.

It's difficult to get figures on crimes that go unreported, but community leaders and those who work with immigrants say they see greater reluctance to go to police.

Mateos Alvarez, a community organizer with Metro Organizations for People (MOP), said his staff has seen more unreported crimes against immigrants - both legal and illegal.

"A growing number of people are afraid to step forward, either because they are undocumented, or because there are people in their homes who are undocumented," said Alvarez.

Ironically, his group held a press conference recently to announce the success of a pilot police project that has led to a 21.4 percent reduction in crime in the Westwood neighborhood in southwest Denver.

"Our message is that immigrants and the poor are working to mobilize the community to report crime on a more consistent basis," he said. "While underreporting is a problem, we've been successful in getting more people involved."

Denver Police Cmdr. Rudy Sandoval, who attended the briefing, said underreporting of crimes has not been a problem in Denver.

"That has never been an issue. All along, we have sent a clear message to the community that they have no reason to have inhibitions about contacting us," he said.

Sandoval, whose district includes Westwood and other southwest Denver neighborhoods with many immigrants, said the city has a longstanding policy of not pursuing immigration violations that are unrelated to routine law enforcement. That policy has reduced illegal immigrants' fear that police will turn them over to federal officials, he said.

Senate Bill 90, approved during the regular legislative session, requires law enforcement to notify federal officials if someone they arrest is a suspected illegal immigrant. Domestic violence cases, where victims often are reluctant to cooperate with police, and minor traffic violations are excepted.

Denver police say they have not changed their policies for notifying U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement about arrested immigrants. The county jail reports foreign-born inmates to ICE, but police do not notify ICE about those given a summons for court instead of being booked.

Still, Denver Police Detective Rufino Trujillo, president of the Denver chapter of the National Latino Peace Officers Organization, worries.

"I worry that, more and more, people (in the Hispanic community) are going to stop calling. They're going to be extremely vulnerable, especially to home invasions, robberies and burglaries," Trujillo said.

Trujillo's organization sent a letter to state legislators warning that asking local law enforcement to carry out the federal responsibility of apprehending illegal immigrants would result in underreporting of crimes. That also sends a message to criminals that immigrants are easy prey, he said.

Benita Muniz, a community justice advocate for the Denver District Attorney's Office, agreed that crime underreporting is a growing concern.

"As someone who has a lot of contact with the community, including immigrants, I definitely think that as our immigrant population has grown, so has the number of crimes that have gone unreported," she said.

Muniz said she is especially concerned about undocumented women in abusive relationships.

With the help of MOP, Lopez said she is now less afraid to report a crime, and encourages her friends and neighbors to do so.

or 303-954-5250

Comments

  • August 15, 2008

    6:18 a.m.

    Suggest removal

    syber writes:

    I am currently under a legal agreement with a satellite company not to ask that someone be charged with a crime nor can I be a complainant against them in the criminal case. Not only that, should the satellite company decide to steal my programming again, I am prohibited from stopping them. Like the individual in the article, when the satellite company stole my programming through the bait and switch, I became a crime victim myself. But even victims of crime can be sued in civil court and leveraged by the high costs of litigation, can be successfully silenced from there right to seek justice. I am afraid to ask that someone be charged because I will be sued.