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Law Enforcement Engagement Initiative
advancing the immigration dialogue
In early 2009, Art Venegas - the former Chief of the Sacramento Police Department and a 30-plus year veteran of law enforcement-looked at the state of the national debate on immigration and realized that an important voice was missing: the voice of reason. Art and his colleagues across the country had extensive firsthand experience dealing with the consequences of a broken federal immigration system. They had seen how federal "enforcement-only" policies created an atmosphere of fear that threatened community trust and made it harder for police to capture criminals, and they had suffered the effects of efforts to make local police enforce federal immigration law-diverting resources that were already scarce.
Art founded the Law Enforcement Engagement Initiative (LEEI) to provide a platform for law enforcement professionals to add their expertise to the dialogue about common-sense immigration reform. Using the network of professional contacts Art has developed over the course of his career, LEEI works with professional law enforcement organizations and individual policing executives to educate the American people and its elected leaders on the threats a broken immigration system poses to public safety and national security.
LEEI firmly believes that for law enforcement to be effective, all members of our communities must be engaged as our "eyes and ears" partners to help combat crime and terror. A community cannot be healthy and safe if its members do not trust or are afraid of their law enforcement officers.
The Chiefs of Police of America's major cities and other law enforcement professional organizations share LEEI's belief that it is not in our nation's best interest to have any resident of our community who is a victim or a witness to a crime afraid to step forward for peace and justice. They recognize the need to properly identify everyone in their communities in order to detect, apprehend and bring to justice violent criminals-regardless of immigration status.
Policing professionals have also seen firsthand that local law enforcement resources are already stretched to the limit fighting local crime, and recognize that only properly trained and equipped federal agents, not local or state police who may lack the proper expertise or education, can enforce immigration law.
The individuals and organizations participating in LEEI events represent diverse viewpoints; they do not necessarily endorse the views expressed by other participants, Art Venegas or the Law Enforcement Engagement Initiative.
A Powerful Voice in Advancing the Dialogue on Common Sense Immigration Reform
Copyright © 2009, Law Enforcement Engagement Initiative. All rights reserved.
P.O. Box 22622
Sacramento, CA 95822
(916) 718-7607
Project Director
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