Salinas PD partners with US Immigration and Customs to fight crime
A new partnership involving a local police department and federal crime unit might have residents of Salinas worried. So why are police telling people not to worry?
With a large number of undocumented immigrants on the Central Coast, Salinas residents might understandably get upset to learn that their local police department will be working with homeland security. But it turns out this new partnership should only help take criminals off the streets, and no one else.
“I’ve spent months trying to communicate to our residents and assure them that we are not in the business of immigration enforcement,” said Salinas Police Chief Adele Frese.
And that’s a policy Police Chief Frese says they plan to keep despite partnering up with a branch of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The Salinas Police Department will work with hHSI, or Homeland Security Investigations, mostly on human trafficking and gang-related crime.
“We’re talking about criminals here. Nothing about immigration,” said Frese.
There are five branches of ICE, though most people usually only hear about the ERO, or Enforcement and Removal Operations branch. Salinas PD will not be working with them.
“Within ICE there are two very large components. You have homeland security investigations,
which is the division in which I work, and we are the special agents. We are
criminal investigators that conduct complex trans-national, large in scope,
investigations in regards to gang enforcement, human trafficking,narcotics,
weapon smuggling, financial crimes, human exploitation,” said Homeland Security Investigations Special Agent in Charge, Ryan Spradlin.
Chief Frese says people shouldn’t be worried, but glad that their short-staffed police department will be getting some much needed help.
“It’s just an additional resource and together we may have a much stronger presence in investigating a criminal act. So I’m gonna bring in every partner I can if it means we’re doing a better job at making children safe and investigating felony crimes,” said Frese.
Chief Frese says the partnership won’t cost the city any additional money, and it should help reduce human trafficking and gang-crime in big ways.
