Driving While Immigrant

Emboldened by the "success" of its preventive war in Iraq, the Bush Administration appears to be expanding its preventive law-enforcement strategy at home. The centerpiece of that strategy is the use of minor infractions as pretexts to lock up suspects on whom the government lacks sufficient evidence to accuse them of more serious crimes. Immigration law violations have been the pretext of choice. The Justice Department has invoked every immigration charge under the sun--including the failure to file a notice of change of address within ten days of moving--to detain and in-

terrogate "suspected terrorists," virtually none of whom have turned out to have anything to do with terrorism. Now Attorney General John Ashcroft seeks to extend that strategy nationwide, ultimately giving every police officer, from a rural county sheriff to a state police traffic cop, the same pretextual tools. This development should sound alarm bells, for it is likely to undermine criminal law enforcement, affecting the safety of us all.

Until recently, only the Immigration and Naturalization Service was authorized to enforce immigration law, for two very good reasons. Immigration law is notoriously complex, and its enforcement requires specialized training. And more important, it interferes with criminal law enforcement. Foreign nationals with any possible immigration problems who are victims of or witnesses to crimes simply will not come forward if the price of doing so might be deportation. For those reasons, we have always divided criminal and immigration law enforcement.

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