Lt. Eddie Reyes sat in front of a table in his Dallas police uniform. He peered down into a camera, then hit record.
His remarks lasted only three minutes, but carried a weighted message: Please don’t be afraid of us. Please continue going to grocery stores, school and church.
Please keep reporting crime.
“Don’t worry about what’s happening right now,” Reyes said in Spanish in his video, which he filmed live Jan. 24 on Facebook. “It’s business as usual here at the Dallas Police Department.”
His public plea came as U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents carry out “enhanced targeted operations” in North Texas, where 84 people of “varying degrees of criminality” were detained last weekend, said Dexter Henson, an agency spokesperson.
The immigration crackdown, a central pledge of President Donald Trump’s re-election campaign, has spurred protests and anxiety for some in North Texas, who police officials worry could shy away from reporting crime out of fear of their immigration status becoming known. The fall-out can include increased worries about racial profiling added to general mistrust of law enforcement and widespread misinformation, former and current police officials told The Dallas Morning News.
That impact can strain local law enforcement’s efforts to fight crime and build trust with diverse populations, the officials said. Local police can work with federal authorities to carry out operations but do not typically get specialized training on immigration enforcement.
Their concerns aren’t unfounded. In 2018, The New York Times reported that authorities documented declines in crime reporting by immigrants, which appeared to coincide with the start of Trump’s first term in office, when ICE stepped up deportation efforts. The American Civil Liberties Union released a survey at the time that said immigrants were less likely to call the police, help police with their investigations and work with prosecutors.
As news spread about ICE’s efforts after Trump’s Jan. 20 inauguration, some North Texas police agencies released brief statements that re-asserted a commitment to serving everyone.
“Our focus remains on fostering trust, building strong relationships, and maintaining open channels of communication with all residents, no matter the concerns,” Garland police spokesperson Lt. Pedro Barineau told The News in a written statement.
Interim Dallas police Chief Michael Igo would not directly answer questions about how his officers are responding to the immigration crackdown, but he read a prepared statement by the city of Dallas in a video posted on the police department’s social media pages Wednesday.
The statement, which city of Dallas officials had released a day earlier, said officials “will continue to serve all our residents without regard to race, ethnicity, religion, sexual orientation, national origin, or other protected categories.”
“That is not only the law but the right thing to do,” the statement said, adding the federal government is “primarily responsible” for enforcing immigration laws and “there are no changes to how the City of Dallas and DPD will provide services.”
“This also means that if you are a victim of a crime, you have the right to report it, regardless of immigration status,” the city’s statement said.
The Mesquite Police Department declined to comment on federal operations, saying only it remains committed to the safety and well-being of “all in our community.” The Fort Worth Police Department said community engagement is a priority and referred to its policies already in place for interactions with people who are not naturalized citizens or are undocumented.
But Reyes, the Dallas police lieutenant who serves in the interim chief’s external communications team, spoke directly to the fear he’d seen. In his Facebook video, he said he got several messages from people who are afraid and want information. He encouraged people to ignore misinformation, adding the Latino community shouldn’t be fearful.
“Please, have patience and try to calm down,” he said in Spanish.
Police officials are working on a plan to go into churches and schools and to partner with organizations to assure people the department’s goal is the same, he said.
“Our priority is crime,” Dallas police Sgt. Jesse Rodriguez, a Latino Community Outreach coordinator, emphasized in Spanish in his own video last weekend. “Crime is the No. 1 problem in the city of Dallas. We’re not going to get involved in matters that are political.”
Targeting violent crimes
Police agencies’ efforts to assuage concerns come as news about immigration enforcement continues to ramp up nationally. Last week, the U.S. Department of Justice directed federal prosecutors to investigate local or state authorities who appear to stand in the way of boosted enforcement efforts. On Wednesday, Trump signed into law a bill that gives federal immigration agencies broad authority to detain migrants accused of a variety of crimes.
Tyler Owen, communications manager for the Texas Municipal Police Association, which has about 34,000 members in Texas law enforcement, said officers are helping federal authorities detain migrants accused of violent crimes who are already known to them.
Texas officers aren’t changing how they police, he said, they’re working again with task forces created in years past to help make arrests in a safer way with more manpower.
“It appears that they’ve got like a target list and those targets on those are criminals,” Owen said. “This isn’t a citizenship check. This isn’t a random check. These are violent people who had no business crossing the border to begin with.”
Still, ramped up rhetoric has a trickle-down effect on local law enforcement, Owen said, adding that’s especially true in Texas with its large Latino population. Police have had to confront festering misinformation: Routine SWAT raids have been mistaken for ICE raids, and, in one case Owen cited, uniformed local officers have been mistaken as ICE agents.
Local officers are having to “sort through the ashes” because law enforcement tends to be the only level of government that most people interact with, Owen said. Officers are trying to balance those challenges, he added, while maintaining a community policing presence and showing the empathy and sympathy expected of them.
He encouraged people not to buy into social media posts. He stressed that police officers are “not just going to walk up to your door and ask to see people’s citizenship.” People will only be asked for it if a person is a suspect in a crime, he said.
“It’s a simple answer,” Owen said. “If you’re here illegally, don’t commit any crimes. It’s not hard and you’re not going to have any issues with law enforcement.”
If an officer comes across someone here illegally who is suspected of a crime, “they’re going to be processed and the court system will deal with that,” Owen said. He said he understands concerns that people could be afraid of reporting crimes amid the crackdown, but said law enforcement will show “just as much empathy to a non-U.S. citizen as we are U.S. citizens.”
“ If you need help, call us,” he said. “We’re going to answer that call.”
‘Very chilling’
Gregory Smith — director of the Institute for Law Enforcement Administration, a division of the Center for American and International Law — said local law enforcement operates on the same principles a fire service would with a fire. Firefighters are not concerned with who the people are, Smith said, their job is to put out a fire to protect people. He said police view crime similarly.
Local law enforcement executives “walk very lightly” with the topic of immigration because they want people to feel comfortable and to contact them if they have concerns, said Smith, who worked about 10 years as an officer for Baylor Medical Center in Dallas and the military.
News of the immigration crackdowns can have a powerful impact if people are afraid to report crime for fear of their immigration status becoming known, Smith said.
“It can be very chilling,” he added. “The one thing that local law enforcement does not want is for our people to fear or feel at risk of contacting the police. When folks are afraid of contacting the police, it opens up a number of avenues for crimes and mistreatment to go unaddressed.
“From a policing perspective, all that is going to multiply that factor of avoidance that we don’t want to see. And if our officers are involved in the process, it just amplifies that even more.”
Local law enforcement agencies are going to follow the law, but have “completely different missions” from federal authorities, Smith said. Most major police agencies have community outreach programs and are constantly in contact with people, Smith said, adding that’s true of the institute’s local members, including Dallas, Plano, Grand Prairie and Fort Worth police.
The key now, Smith said, is that local law enforcement agencies boost their engagement efforts and reassure communities that officers are there to protect and serve, not to enforce immigration laws. He said he’d like to see public service announcements.
“ One of the hardest spaces to fill in this work is the community doesn’t always see the outreach that the organizations are doing,” Smith said. “ Progressive law enforcement is out there doing that, especially here in North Texas.”
That mission has become even more important in this climate, Smith said. He knows of people who are afraid for themselves, family and friends. They worry about racial profiling, Smith said, and even American citizens are carrying their documents with them to prove their citizenship.
While it’s good that officers are focused on targeting people suspected of violent crime, Smith said, the concern is “there will be collateral damage.”
“As a citizen, I’ve never seen this kind of fear,” Smith said. “Whether they’re undocumented or even documented or a citizen period, there’s people that are afraid.”
Staff writer Aarón Torres contributed to this report.