united-states police immigration
Are the police legally obligated to report an illegal immigrant who reports a crime?
<p>Say that a person is an illegal immigrant in the United States and a crime is committed against them, such as robbery, domestic abuse, etc. If they report the crime to the police, and a police officer discovers that the person is an illegal immigrant, do they have a legal obligation to report them? Or does being the victim of a crime give them some sort of immunity against this?</p>

<p>This question is prompted by the beginning of story on the radio about how illegal immigrants who were victims of domestic abuse were afraid that they would be deported if they went to the police. I didn't hear enough to know if their concerns were justified.</p>

<p>"Police" that one would generally encounter in the US are local or state agencies, and the ordinary crimes you mentioned are matters of state law, so they would be reported to local or state police. (There are federal law enforcement agencies, but they only deal with specialized areas of federal law, and you wouldn't ordinarily encounter them in daily life.) On the other hand, immigration is a matter of federal law.</p>

<p>The responsibilities of local or state police are governed by state law, and the federal government cannot compel state officers to enforce federal law. A specific state's law could potentially require state and local police to ask about people's immigration status and/or ask the federal government to check on the status of someone they suspect might be illegal. I believe a few red states have enacted, or are considering, such laws, though they usually deal with people stopped by police rather than people filing a report. Some of these laws have been challenged in court, and I am not sure which exact parts of which laws are still being implemented for each of those states. Most states do not have such laws.</p>
