Common ​“Sanctuary” Ground Found

It turns out that two people with diametrically opposed views on Donald Trump and immigration can listen to each other and find some common ground in the wake of the president’s new executive order targeting ​“sanctuary cities.”

At least that’s what happened on the latest edition of ​“Dateline New Haven.”

One person in the conversation was a white retired cop, the former interim chief of New Haven’s police department, John Velleca. He opposes President Trump’s order announced Wednesday to deputize local cops to help the feds catch undocumented immigrants and to withdraw federal money from ​“sanctuary cities” like New Haven that bar cops from sharing information on arrestees’ immigration status.

The other person in the conversation was a Latino radio station manager, Harry Droz. (He manages WNHH-FM.) He supports Trump’s moves on immigration.

Velleca began by arguing that Trump’s order — if carried out and found constitutional — will make New Haven less safe. He said New Haven’s policies help immigrants trust the cops. As a result, they share information that helps police solve crimes.

He told a story about when, before New Haven instituted a policy generally forbidding officers from inquiring into people’s immigration status, he responded to the scene of a murder in Fair Haven. A man had been shot dead. Velleca wanted to interview his wife. She feared the police would find out she was undocumented, so instead of cooperating, she fled the country.

“We’ve worked too hard in New Haven to bring everybody to the forefront to beat them back” into the shadows, Velleca said.

Droz responded that Trump’s order will keep New Haven safer by helping police catch more criminals. Trump’s reviving a program called ​“Secure Communities” that would require local cops to detain arrestees who show up on lists of undocumented immigrants wanted for violent crimes.

“The people here illegally are much more likely to victims of crime than violent criminals,” Velleca observed.

Droz observed that police participate with federal authorities in drug investigations. So, he argued, they shouldn’t refuse to do the same with immigration. He accused cities like New Haven of picking and choosing which federal laws to help enforce.

Velleca agreed — and said he’s comfortable with picking and choosing. Busting violent drug gangs keeps the city safer, he said. Having local cops become immigration officers ​“breaks down communcation. It breaks down community policing.”

“I understand police need to have a relationship with the community,” Droz said. He said Velleca convinced him that local cops shouldn’t be deputized to carry out immigration law.

But he continued to argue that if someone’s a violent felon, it makes sense, once police have arrested him, to let the feds know.

“If you come across a violent criminal, let’s kick them out of the country,” Droz said.

Velleca said that if someone has been convicted of truly violent crimes — and is rearrested — he can agree with Droz that forwarding that information could keep the city safer.

Many, many other questions remain at issue in the wake of Trump’s order: Whether, for instance, it’s constitutional. (See this article for more on that.) Or whether immigrants who show up on the detention-request lists have truly committed violent crimes (or if they’re more likely to have suffered this man’s fate). Or whether the existing laws can deal with violent crimes regardless of a person’s immigration status.

But, for a few minutes in a radio studio, two people existing on opposite sides of America’s polarized debate proved these questions can be rationally discussed with an open mind.

Click on or download the above audio file to hear the full episode of ​“Dateline New Haven,” in which Velleca also weighed in on the debate over when police should conduct high-speed chases and argued that Interim Chief Anthony Campbell has proved he should be selected as New Haven’s next permanent chief.

Today’s episode was made possible in part thanks to support from Yale-New Haven Hospital.