Chief Andre Sayles on Beloit Police and Immigration Status

Frederica Freyberg:
A bill in Washington would mandate immigration officers arrest and detain immigrants in the country illegally who are suspected of minor theft of $100 or more. In Beloit, where the U.S. Census estimates 10% of the population to be foreign-born and 20% to be Hispanic, the police chief wrote an open letter to the city’s 36,000 residents, saying officers do not seek out people who are undocumented, but consider immigration status only when a serious crime has been committed impacting public safety. The chief’s social media post has gone viral with strong feelings on both sides. We sat down with Chief Andre Sayles and started by asking his reaction to the legislation.

Andre Sayles:
It’s one of those things where you have to really try to dive into it and wanting to look and learn more about what is the actual goal of the bill. And when you’re looking at some of those minor crimes, it’s one of those things where when people are arrested for minor crimes, what are we doing? We’re overpopulating the jails and some of those offenses, especially with our illegal immigrants, as they say, are those things where we’re holding people in jail for minor offenses to where we can also counsel them, talk to them about it, and then release them instead of holding them in spaces where our violent criminals need to be. I think one of the biggest things is we’re adding more work to an already stressful job. A job that provides — here in the city of Beloit, we take roughly 57,000 calls a year, and that’s over 1,000 calls a week for our police officers, over 100 and something calls a day. And when we’re doing that, you’re going to put more strain on our already strained law enforcement to now stay in these facilities with individuals, to hold them for ICE instead of ICE giving guidance and saying we will look at these certain crimes and we will be responsible for it. You have federal government, state government and local government, and we’re putting a lot more work on your local government to do, I believe, a job that should be on the federal side.

Frederica Freyberg:
How does that legislation square with your community policing philosophy?

Andre Sayles:
It aligns with it to some point. But at the same time, we want to be good stewards of the people of Beloit, our community members here in the city of Beloit. So it’s going to put that strain between our community members and the police department, and we’ve worked diligently to bring down that strain and to be inclusive to all, and to make sure that we’re working for everyone, giving everyone a voice and an opportunity to have a relationship with our police department, to talk with our police department. And if we fully dive into that, we’re going to remove a great deal of people here in the city of Beloit.

Frederica Freyberg:
When will your officers cooperate with ICE?

Andre Sayles:
We will cooperate when we get further guidance. When there are violent felons arrested. In those situations, we will call ICE. We will talk to them and say, hey, this is what we have. What are our next steps? If ICE were to come here and do a project, they typically call them a roundup. What are we looking for? Who are we looking for? What have they done that meets that felony threshold? And how can we be of assistance of that? We’re not saying that we don’t want to be partners with ICE. We’re just saying we need further guidance. We need further understanding. And we’re also going to need training.

Frederica Freyberg:
So you wrote an open letter to residents in Beloit this month on this issue. Why did you do that?

Andre Sayles:
I thought as the leader of our police department and the leader of enforcing laws, I think everyone in our community needed to hear from me, to hear our stance on it and to understand that we won’t be going out and just randomly knocking on doors to say, we heard that this person in the home may be illegal. We need to check your immigration status. Once again, that’s going to add more work to our officers. That’s going to prevent us from doing some of the things that we’ve done to build a better Beloit as far as making sure our roadways are safe, making sure that we’re being partners of our students in the community because they are our future, making sure that we’re handling the violent crime that Beloit has had a history of known for. We are a city that went from having over 100 confirmed shootings in this city to where we’re in the 20s now, and that is the hard work that the men and women of the Beloit Police Department has done with the help of our community members. So if we tarnish that relationship, we’re going to go back to those days of don’t go to Beloit.

Frederica Freyberg:
What has been the reaction from the community?

Andre Sayles:
The people that I know that live in the city of Beloit has had a positive reaction to the message. They appreciate me being transparent, explaining what we’re going to do as a police department and how we’re going to continue to cooperate with our community members. But I think a lot of it has been — probably a lot of people that’s not from the city of Beloit, weighing in on some things that I would just say they probably really didn’t understand, or they took bits and pieces of that message and created a bigger message.

Frederica Freyberg:
What has been the reaction on the part of immigrants in your city?

Andre Sayles:
I really haven’t had too many conversations, but I did speak to one of our Hispanic population leaders in the city of Beloit, and she was very appreciative of the message that we put out and understood why I put that message out and understood that by me putting that message out, it received a little bit of stress from our Hispanic population in the city of Beloit. And it’s unfortunate that it seems that it’s directly, directly pointed only at the Hispanic population. But when you look at immigration, you have to look at all of the world. You know, we have people from China that may be illegal immigrants. El Salvador, you have people that are from the Philippines and things of that nature. So I think the collective message is all that may be illegal immigrants don’t have to worry about us just knocking on their door, checking their immigration status. If we get to a point to where they’re involved in a serious crime, that may come up, but we’re not just going to go out and ask for their immigration status.

Frederica Freyberg:
So you said that you’re waiting for guidance…

Andre Sayles:
Yes.

Frederica Freyberg:
… on all of this. And yet, what are your concerns given what has been roiling around in the headlines?

Andre Sayles:
No concerns as of yet. I’m a person that likes to sit back and wait and watch and look and get my own facts from documents that’s provided for local law enforcement. And if I have concerns out of that, then express those concerns to the person that may have sent it to us from the federal government and say these are the things that we think needs to change as a local law enforcement agency, or can you provide further guidance on what you’re saying in these certain situations?

Frederica Freyberg:
If the guidance and the laws say that you do, in fact have to interact with the immigrant population in this city by way of going door to door and asking for their documentation, you will uphold the law, I assume?

Andre Sayles:
Yes, most definitely. But once again, I’m going to make sure we are very detailed in our response to ICE or the federal government to make sure that our officers that are going to be held accountable for violating people’s natural born rights, that may be legal citizens of the city of Beloit, but someone assumes that they’re not. So we want to make sure that we are doing things best practice and making sure that we’re getting the guidance from the federal government to make sure that we are upholding everyone’s natural born rights. Our thing is we want to make sure that we are providing everyone an opportunity to feel safe in this community of Beloit, and to make sure that the victims are not continued to be victims of crimes that they refuse to report because they feel that we’re going to check their illegal or their immigration status before we make a case against the person that they’re calling on.

Frederica Freyberg:
Chief, thanks very much.

Andre Sayles:
Thank you for allowing the Beloit Police Department to get our message out. Thank you.