Sound policy on immigrants

Kudos to Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle for not letting the tyranny of the anecdote drive policy with respect to the county ordinance that honors the U.S. Constitution by allowing the criminally accused who post bond to be freed on bond, regardless of their citizenship.

I seriously doubt that the Hanover Park police officers who are alleged victims believe they would not have been treated the same way if those same accused had been passport-carrying American citizens. There is nothing inherently dangerous about immigrants, documented or undocumented.

It is such principles as the Constitution applies equally to everyone that should drive policy. Preckwinkle’s support for the ordinance is also a welcome reaffirmation of such constitutional principles as the right to bail, and the presumption of innocence. With all respect to the Daily Herald Editorial Board and to Hanover Park Mayor Rodney Craig, we all depend on these protections. That the ordinance saves money is icing on the cake.

Have confidence that when the judge set the bonds in question, she or he had the benefit of ample information about the case and about the accused. That’s the job done by prosecutors and public defenders.

Yes, we as practitioners sometimes see in the way bond is set the sort of troubling inconsistencies to which Preckwinkle referred. Fairness is a work in progress. Likewise, Preckwinkle is correct in noting the troubling inconsistencies attendant to current immigration-enforcement policies in place at the county jail. She called the new ordinance “a great step forward toward a more suitable, fair policy.” That is another principle in which we all should believe.

Scott Slonim

Chief, Rolling Meadows division

Law Office of the Cook County Public Defender