"[MN Governor] Pawlenty Asks Cities To Rethink Immigration Ordinances"

From this:

Minneapolis (AP) Gov. Tim Pawlenty has asked the city councils of Minneapolis and St. Paul to reconsider laws that limit situations in which police officers can ask about a person's immigration status...

Pawlenty asks each city to amend or repeal "an ordinance which effectively prohibits police officers from inquiring about immigration status if such an inquiry is the sole basis for questioning or detaining an individual."

Minneapolis City Council President Paul Ostrow said the city has no plans to change its ordinance, but would be willing to discuss the issue with the governor.

"We believe that the ordinance that we passed was appropriate, and absolutely consistent with many states," Ostrow said.

St. Paul Deputy Mayor Dennis Flaherty told the St. Paul Pioneer Press that the city would look at its current ordinance to see how it really stacks up, adding the city did not intend to prohibit police officers from identifying criminal suspects.

Under the Minneapolis ordinance, passed in 2003, police officers do not have the authority to walk up to someone on the street and ask whether he or she is a naturalized citizen. The issue of citizenship can be raised, however, if it is part of the crime being investigated...

I don't know how the Twin Cities' policies stack up against the apparently more loony policies of Los Angeles, Houston, and three other cities:

September 11 Commission member John Lehman Thursday criticized so-called "sanctuary" practices in Houston and elsewhere that restrict cooperation between local police and federal immigration officials as an invitation to terrorists looking to enter the United States.

"It is ridiculous that five cities in the United States do not allow local police to cooperate with the federal immigration service," said Lehman, visiting Houston to lobby for Sept. 11 commission report recommendations.

"The terrorists know" which cities have such policies, Lehman said, naming Houston and Los Angeles among those cities.

Of course, as can be expected, those who support illegal immigration are up in arms. I'm not going to bother giving the Minneapolis Star-Tribune's "Editorial: Illegal immigrants/Pawlenty's off base, again" (link) and space. Suffice it to say that an editorial that uses not only "anti-immigrant" in the first sentence but "[s]ome Americans hate illegal immigrants" near the end loses any credibility it might have had. If most Americans who are opposed to illegal immigration hate anyone it's not the immigrants themselves but those who seek to profit from illegal immigration.