BETHLEHEM, Pa. – The city of Bethlehem has entered into an agreement allowing designated city police officers to work with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Homeland Security Investigations.<\/p>\n
Bethlehem police say this will provide them with access to more federal crime-fighting resources. It will not, however, involve any immigration enforcement.<\/p>\n
In a 4-3 vote Tuesday night, Bethlehem City Council approved an agreement allowing designated city police officers to work with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s Homeland Security Investigations.<\/p>\n
The understanding does not allow for any immigration enforcement.<\/p>\n
“There will absolutely be no immigration enforcement by this task force officer. We have spoken with HSI regarding that; they understand, nor do they want us involved in any immigration enforcement,” says Captain William Audelo, City of Bethlehem Police Department.<\/p>\n
Instead, the partnership will assist Bethlehem police with more complex criminal investigations that often cross state lines, things like child exploitation and drug smuggling.<\/p>\n
“What it really does is it gives us an incredible amount of resources that we can tap into when we need a lot more eyes on and a lot more time dedicated to a complex case,” says Captain Audelo.<\/p>\n
The agreement will also help combat human trafficking, something Bethlehem police say is happening right now in the city.<\/p>\n
“If we do not find resources from an agency like HSI and we do not become proactive in taking on these large complex investigations, then we’re doing a disservice to the people who are being victimized,” says Captain Audelo.<\/p>\n
One of the department’s detectives will be assigned to the HSI task force role, and that overtime will be paid for by the federal government.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BETHLEHEM, Pa. – The city of Bethlehem has entered into an agreement allowing designated city police officers to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":287834,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[214,153,155,154,1391],"class_list":["post-287833","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-bethlehem","tag-_homepage_top_stories","tag-bethlehem","tag-bethlehem-headlines","tag-bethlehem-news","tag-bethlehem-area"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/287833","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=287833"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/287833\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/287834"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=287833"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=287833"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=287833"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}