City of Painesville’s stance on immigration explained, clarified

Editor’s note: Another Viewpoint is a column The News-Herald makes available so all sides of an issue may be aired. Monica Irelan is Painesville city manager.

The recent deportation of Beatriz Morelos Casillas has once again thrust the city of Painesville into the middle of our heated national debate on immigration policy.

I want to add some light to all that heat and make everyone aware of the many steps we are taking to engage with a national issue that also is an intensely local issue for us in Painesville. I also want to correct and clarify some misstatements of fact and confusion around the actions of our city government and police department.

First and foremost, we support multiculturalism and respect diversity. It’s the backbone of Painesville’s economy, and it strengthens our community.

As Jim Fodor, one of our Painesville council members and a 40-year resident, told USA Today, opinions in Painesville about immigration are as diverse as our community.

And while opinions about immigration vary widely, we want everyone to understand these facts about what Painesville is doing.

It’s not our job to track and arrest people who are in this country illegally. That’s the job of U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement, or ICE.

But we do follow local and federal laws and it is our responsibility to the federal government to share information about violent criminals or drug offenders whom Painesville police officers identify as potentially undocumented. We created a policy with very clear, specific guidelines: Our officers will only contact ICE about a suspect’s immigration status if the arresting officer has a reasonable suspicion that the suspect is in this country without proper documentation and may have committed one of the serious crimes specified in our policy. It also is worth noting that our policy is much more defined than ICE’s broad direction that anyone charged with any crime who is suspected of being an undocumented immigrant should be reported to the agency. We are not doing that.

Ms. Casillas, for example, was arrested for driving without a license by the Ohio Highway Patrol — not by Painesville police — and then was arrested by U.S. immigration authorities because she had been deported in 2001.

In another media report on a different deportation, Painesville police were characterized as “eager” to turn in immigrants to ICE. That simply is not true. We are following a clear, strict policy designed to keep all of our citizens safe.

And we are doing much more than adopting a policy.

We have formed a task force charged with reviewing our policy and helping us work through these issues. Facilitated by John T. Shepard, superintendent of our city schools, our task force includes: Kim Albasi, an immigration lawyer; Veronica Dahlberg, executive director of HOLA, a Latino advocacy organization; Feliciano Gamez, a Painesville resident and active community member; Christine Shoop, a council member and 44-year Painesville resident; Robert Soto, a bilingual officer on the Painesville Police Department; and the Rev. Christopher Zerucha, a priest at St. Mary Catholic Church in Painesville.

Our task force recently met, will continue meeting and we will be reporting back to the community.

We also are investigating programs designed to help inclusive, diverse communities that want to continue growing and succeeding, including Building One America and Welcoming Cities.

And I have reached out the National Council of La Raza and the National Institute for Latino Policy and am exploring how we can work with the Diversity Center of Northeast Ohio.

We can’t resolve the national immigration debate in Painesville, Ohio.

But we can resolve to address our concerns in Painesville by listening, talking and appreciating different points of view.

Monica Irelan