WEST ORANGE, NJ — Mayor Robert Parisi told those gathered for the West Orange Human Relations Commission’s Feb. 22 “We All Belong” town hall meeting that it would be unnecessary to declare the township a sanctuary city because undocumented immigrants in the township currently do not risk being singled out by local law enforcement.
Though the West Orange Police Department would enforce any arrest warrant issued by the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, Parisi stressed that the WOPD will not enforce national immigration laws voluntarily. Likewise, he said, the department has no interest in having officers become deputized by ICE to locate and arrest illegal immigrants living in the community. And becoming a sanctuary city will not change that, he said.
“We have no intention of spending our time and, quite frankly, limited resources searching for illegal aliens when we have more important things to do to protect the 49,000 people (in this town) and (carry out) all the day-to-day operations that a municipal police department prioritizes,” Parisi said.
Parisi’s made these comments while sitting on a six-person panel assembled by the HRC to address diversity-related questions posed by HRC Chairwoman Tammy Williams and audience members. Other panel members included Assemblyman John McKeon, township business administrator Jack Sayers, former HRC chairman and J.O.Y. Church of God pastor Douglas Adams, township public information officer Susan Anderson and police Chief James Abbott.
Abbott also said that the WOPD has “better things to do” than enforce national immigration policies, adding that none of the three mayors he has worked under has ever asked the department to look for illegal immigrants. He added that the police department does not have any sort of list or database that keeps track of undocumented residents.
In fact, Abbott said the only time police officers can ask whether a citizen is in the country legally — according to a 2007 New Jersey attorney general directive — is if the citizen is arrested for an indictable offense.
“In those instances it’s a universal application — we ask that to everybody,” Abbott said. “We don’t do it based on speech patterns or appearances.”
According to Abbott, the WOPD has reported two illegal immigrants to ICE after arresting them for domestic violence and endangering a child, respectively. ICE took custody of the person arrested for domestic violence, he said, but it did not respond to the person arrested for endangering a child.
Despite Parisi and Abbott’s assurances, some residents still felt that making West Orange a sanctuary city is the right move. Two in particular expressed that doing so would send a positive message needed at a time when President Donald Trump has made it clear that deporting illegal immigrants is a priority.
“It would be an important message of support,” one of the residents said, adding that such a designation would show both undocumented and documented immigrants that “this is a town where they can feel safe and they can feel protected.”
But Parisi disagreed with that reasoning. The mayor said West Orange demonstrates that it is a welcoming community every day through its diversity and inclusivity, pointing out that his son’s pre-prom party included everyone from same-sex couples to a transgender student. Adding a symbolic title to that would be redundant, he said.
“We are living what we all aspire to,” Parisi said. “I don’t know that we need a declaration to tell the world that we are.”
Becoming a sanctuary city was not the only topic discussed at the “We All Belong” town hall meeting. Williams asked for a racial breakdown of arrests made by the WOPD in 2016, to which Abbott answered that there were 532 black people, 306 white people, six Asian/Pacific Island people, four American Indian/Alaska native people and three people of unknown race arrested in 2016. He said those numbers are “pretty consistent” with what the department has seen in recent years.
Abbott’s statistics also showed that the percentage of black people arrested was disproportionate to the number of black residents in the community; they made up 62.3 percent of arrests but only 26.6 percent of the West Orange population. Yet the police chief pointed out that most people the department arrests do not live in town, so it is unfair to compare the statistics. All arrests are made based on probable cause too, he said.
Still, the WOPD is trying to ensure that implicit bias plays no role in its policing. Abbott said the Police Academy offers training on cultural diversity, special needs, emotional reactions and the prevention of racially influenced policing. Once officers join the department, he said they receive similar training annually. Additionally, he said the WOPD will soon be engaging in online training provided by the state that deals in part with addressing implicit bias.
The WOPD looks into every complaint it receives against its officers, Abbott said, adding that the department uses software that tracks the number of complaints filed against each officer.
“I’m a firm believer of where there’s smoke, there’s fire,” Abbott said. “If we see somebody has an inordinate amount of complaints, we address it right away. Usually it’s more of a training issue than anything, but we’re right on top of it.”
Meanwhile, Abbott said he has frequently asked the NAACP to lobby the state to allow civil service departments like the WOPD to participate in a program that would allow it to hire officers who pay for their own police academy training. Being part of that program would not only save the department a lot of money, he said, but would also make it easier for the WOPD to hire more minority candidates. He said the department, which has 97 sworn officers, is currently 72 percent white male, 2 percent white female, 9 percent black male, 13 percent Hispanic male, 1 percent Hispanic female and 2 percent Asian.
Regardless of the racial makeup of the WOPD, Abbott assured the audience that all officers take bias-related situations seriously. He said the department was even the first in the state to feature a bias incident officer dedicated to investigating hostile acts motivated by prejudice — something the state now mandates. In addition, Parisi said residents can report any incidents of bigotry on the township website.
The HRC is also doing its part to foster tolerance in town, with Adams pointing out that it has held Conversations on Race events and partnered with West Orange High School’s Unity Club in the past. WOHS, too, is demonstrating acceptance. Parent Roger Apollon Jr. said it meant a lot when Principal Hayden Moore told him that Apollon’s transgender son, Jax, would be welcome to change in the boys’ locker room with the rest of his hockey team. It showed him that the township has grown far more diverse and open-minded than when he grew up in West Orange during the 1970s and 1980s, Apollon said.
Yet others in attendance at the meeting felt the township still has a long way to go. One resident said racism still exists in West Orange, despite the progress that has been made. And the only way to address it is to talk about the issues people see in their lives, she said.
“Your experience is certainly not my experience as a minority Hispanic,” the resident said to Parisi. “I think that we need to continue these conversations.”
McKeon echoed a similar sentiment during the meeting, stressing that everyone should listen to one another in order to understand a variety of perspectives. The assemblyman acknowledged that the community is definitely much more diverse than when he moved to West Orange in 1967, a time when the town consisted of predominately Irish, Jewish and Italian residents. But no one can truly know what it is like to be a person of a different race, he said. That is why it is vital that people hear one another out — so they can at least empathize.
Williams agreed that communication is the key to making West Orange an even more tolerant place. The HRC chairwoman said everyone can learn by sharing their experiences and having meaningful conversations, for which the commission will continue to provide opportunities. In doing so, she said, residents will make a difference.
“The world is not going to change in a day,” Williams said. “But each of us as committed, dedicated citizens (can) try in our own space and our own time to make this world a better place. Reach out to your neighbors. Do we even know who our neighbors are? So while we’re consumed with the global community, let’s make sure we take care of home.”
Photos by Sean Quinn
HRC town hall attracts large crowd added by Sean Quinn on
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