Sheriff Emery referred me to a story written by Charlie Schlenker at WGLT radio. It goes into more depth and explains the problems more completely:
http://wglt.org/wireready/news/2012/07/05173_CJCC_Immmig_depth_180058.shtml
by Diane Benjamin
A letter to the Editor in today’s Pantagraph from a local member of Latinos United For Change and Illinois Peoples Action caught my attention. They have been protesting how Sheriff Mike Emery handles illegal aliens arrested for criminal conduct. Our Sheriff has been dealing with their attacks for close to a year.
The letter writer leaves out one important adjective: ILLEGAL. This group thinks they are entitled to special rights and protections.
Sheriff Emery had an editorial in last Sunday’s paper explaining his position. I will not provide links to any Pantagraph stories since they now CHARGE you to read them.
Basically, LUC doesn’t want any illegals arrested by the Sheriff’s Department to be run through ICE. They feel Emery can make his own policy and not comply with laws he doesn’t want to.
I emailed my support to the Sheriff this morning. I got permission to print his response as long as State Attorney Ron Dozier verified it. Here’s the response from both:
Diane,
Good afternoon. Thanks for this note. What is frustrating about this is the amount of misinformation that the LUC distributes. In the letter today Mr. Porter states that a county attorney should be available to give me advise. Well, the LUC invited Judge Dozier to talk with them and Judge Dozier supported me and told them I am following the law. They don’t want to take our States Attorney’s opinion. That was missing from his LTE also. I appreciate your support.
Thanks,
Mike
Diane, my response to Mike was not a formal opinion. He is following the law. It is also true that he could choose to ignore it as some law enforcement agencies have chosen to do. I feel that the reasons he has given me for his choice are valid. I agree with those reasons and support his policy.
It is unfortunate that some individuals suffer hardship because of the enforcement of our immigration laws, but that is a foreseeable consequence of their decisions, and of our federal government policies. Local law enforcement didn’t cause the problem and is not in the position to fix it.
Ron Dozier
McLean County State’s Attorney
We’ve heard plenty of stories about crimes committed by illegal aliens and dead American citizens as a result. If something ever happened here, the public outrage would be on law enforcement. Sheriff Emery is doing what he feels he needs to keep the population safe.
If you want to show your support – his email is: [email protected]
no! i do not support mike emery, i called him about a year ago, i think there is something not right at the mclean co gov, mail room, i told him about it! and he would not talk to me, by phone, or e-mail!
more about mclean co gov! my wife got caned over $1.80 in postage by the public defender, after 12 years of employment,i do not trust any one at mclean co gov, this postage thing goes back a lot of years! the former co clerk, was acused of using county, tax payer paid for postage, for personal use! but the co paid with are money to make that go away! now they wont even talk about it! more corrupt than cook county!