US immigration data, local police are a bad mix
THE FRAMINGHAM police chief, Steven Carl, claims that increasing local police departments' access to federal immigration databases helps to target criminals ("US extends immigrant database to police," Page A1, Dec. 12). But extending access to information in immigration databases is a dangerous tool for local law enforcement.
One problem is that such databases are fraught with errors. For example, a 2005 study revealed that there was a 42 percent overall rate of false positives resulting from the FBI's National Crime Information Center database, which is accessible in most police squad cars.
Since Sept. 11, the federal government began including both civil and criminal immigration violations in this database. In other words, even legal immigrants stopped for a minor traffic violation could find themselves at risk of deportation on the basis of erroneous information. This only increases distrust between immigrants and police.
Without clear guidelines or assurances that such databases are accurate, it's bad law enforcement to expand local police access to immigration databases.
ANJALI WAIKAR
Boston
The writer, a lawyer, is an Equal Justice Works fellow with the American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts. 