Where We Stand:

Orlando shows the way in building immigrants’ trust in the police.

Cops rely on the community’s help to solve crimes. And that requires the community’s trust.

Orlando’s City Council reinforced that sense of trust last week by voting unanimously to prohibit police officers from questioning people about their immigration status.

That means if a person who doesn’t have immigration papers goes to Orlando police to report a crime — either as a victim or as a witness — they don’t have to worry about getting slapped in cuffs for doing the right thing.

It’s sort of a “don’t ask, don’t tell” approach. In this case, the cops don’t care about someone’s immigration status; they care about getting the information they need to keep the community safe.

The city’s resolution also encourages police to issue a so-called “U visa” to victims of certain crimes, a federally authorized program designed to protect undocumented immigrants from deportation if they are cooperating with authorities.

Yes, a victim or witness may be in the country illegally. But Orlando decided it’s important not to freeze out a segment of the community that can help the city combat far more serious offenses than making beds, fixing roofs or going to school without the right immigration documentation.

City officials say these practices already were in place, but it was a smart move to give them City Hall’s official stamp of approval.

We’ve seen the consequences of distrust. In African-American communities police are too often viewed with suspicion by residents who want law and order but don’t trust the police to act justly.

A 2017 Urban Institute study of six U.S. cities found fewer than one in three residents personally trusted the police.

That’s precisely what officials are trying to avoid in Orlando, the hub of a metro area that, as of 2014, was home to more than 100,000 unauthorized immigrants, according to the Pew Research Center. At the time, it was the 19th-largest such population in the country.

Not surprisingly, the negative reaction to Orlando’s decision has ranged from hysterical to untruthful (too often the case with immigration issues). As often happens, social media brings out the worse angels of our nature.

Take the contention that Orlando has taken that first step toward becoming a sanctuary city. While definitions vary, sanctuary cities typically adopt rules that prohibit local law enforcement from cooperating with federal immigration authorities.

Sometimes that means refusing to hold undocumented criminal suspects who are wanted by the feds. Some cities have decided to ignore socalled “detainers,” which are requests from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to hold someone until ICE can arrive to take custody of the suspect. Orlando’s policy does nothing of the sort. For starters, the new policy places no restrictions on law enforcement’s contact with immigration authorities. It simply limits an officer’s ability to question law-abiding people about their immigration status. Also, Orlando doesn’t operate a jail, so it doesn’t respond one way or another to detainer requests from the feds. Finally, if Orlando’s police department wants to keep getting federal law-enforcement grants, it has to keep working with federal authorities.

Most important, though, is Orlando’s policy applies only to people abiding by the law. It in no way provides a safe harbor to criminal suspects. If people are suspected of breaking the law, they’ll end up in the county jail, and if those suspects have violated immigration law, they’re subject to deportation by immigration authorities.

Critics have as much to gain from this as anyone. Police officers need every advantage they can get in solving crimes, and cooperative victims and witnesses help catch bad guys whose next victim might be the very person who is carping about this policy. It’s really pretty simple. Give credit to Orlando for becoming one of the first big cities in the South to approve this cop- and victim-friendly resolution.

Now, what about the rest of Central Florida? Orlando might be the biggest city in the region, but it’s not the only one. Cities like Apopka and Sanford and Kissimmee need to follow Orlando’s lead. So do county governments.

This region, whose economy and cultural identity rely heavily on its immigrant population, must look beyond the raw emotion of the immigration debate and think about what’s best for communities.