iceman cometh

By many accounts, Lila Meizell was a nice lady who died a horrific death. The 83-year-old Wheaton resident was beaten and then burned alive in her home last year, a casualty of an alleged check-cashing scheme that went bad.
Despite the lurid headlines and public consternation, her murder might have been quickly forgotten, stored away in memory like so many other grisly crimes. But the three people in custody are all Salvadoran immigrants, including a man who had done yardwork for Meizell. So her death has become a new front in the political battle over illegal immigrants in Montgomery County.
Until Meizell’s murder and a series of other area homicides police say were committed by Hispanic immigrants, Montgomery County officials had clung to a sort of don’t-ask-don’t-tell policy when dealing with foreign-born residents; they left immigration enforcement to the feds.
All that changed last week, when the Montgomery County Police Department joined a growing number of law enforcement agencies in the D.C. metropolitan area that have stepped up scrutiny of immigrants. These days if you get arrested for handgun possession or a violent crime in Montgomery County, police will forward your name to federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents to find out if you are deportable.
The policy reversal is a blow to CASA of Maryland, one of the most influential immigrant advocacy organizations in the country. CASA Executive Director Gustavo Torres and other immigrant allies vigorously lobbied county officials against wading into immigration issues, warning that such a move could violate the Constitution and set police on a slippery slope toward racial profiling. They also raised the specter of civil rights lawsuits like the one CASA and the American Civil Liberties Union initiated against the Frederick County Sheriff’s Department.

But with the economy tanking and crime and anti-immigrant sentiment on the rise, Montgomery County Executive Isiah “Ike” Leggett bowed to the restive activists on the other side of the debate, who for more than a year had lobbed fiery op-ed salvos at CASA and pressed for more police enforcement of immigration laws.
The new rules don’t go as far as those imposed in Frederick and several Virginia communities. Instead of checking the status of every immigrant crossing their path, Montgomery police now notify ICE of arrests made for two dozen of the most violent crimes. Nevertheless, Leggett’s about-face leaves Montgomery County in curious company among other jurisdictions that have taken to aiding a federal immigration crackdown. How did this happen in CASA’s backyard?

We’re helping to shape, but also riding a wave, of increased power and impact of the Maryland immigrant community,” says Kimberly Propeack, a lobbyist for CASA.
So, why hasn’t CASA been able to fend off this new policing policy in a county it considers a stronghold and where it has ties to Leggett and other local leaders?
“Two years ago, this would not have been able to happen,” says State Delegate Ana Sol Gutierrez, a Democrat and former president of CASA’s board of directors, who represents Montgomery County in Annapolis