common-sense POLICE approach to immigrants

By BARBARA SHELLY The Kansas City Star

Business transactions begin at first light at Southwest Boulevard and Jefferson Street. Hispanic men gather at the windows of pickup trucks and vans, eager to secure work painting houses, cleaning basements or digging up backyards.

Kansas City’s West Side has served as a day labor pool for at least five decades. What’s different lately is that the operation at the Westside Community Action Network Center is being supervised by the Kansas City Police Department.

Some people can’t fathom why police would provide a safe haven to a group that includes illegal immigrants.

“Because it works,” says Chief James Corwin.

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In a recent article he prepared for The Police Chief, a trade publication, Corwin said calls to 911 operators from the neighborhood dropped by 50 percent in the first year of the new labor pool’s operation.

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