A police officer stops a car for a minor traffic violation and asks the driver for his license and registration. The driver has an expired license and speaks little English. The three passengers are uneasy and uncommunicative.

The officer needs to know who the driver is and whether he is wanted for any crimes. Should the officer also ask what country the driver is from and whether he’s a legal citizen here? Should he ask the same questions of the passengers?

This was the kind of scenario discussed by police commanders from around Rhode Island last week at a seminar sponsored by the state police.

For police, dealing with the complexities of illegal immigration requires striking a balance between civil liberties and upholding the law, says Warwick Police Chief Stephen McCartney, the president of the Rhode Island Police Chiefs Association.

Police officials interviewed recently by The Journal say they are caught in the middle of the heated and unresolved national debate over illegal immigration. Immigrant advocates sometimes accuse them of racial profiling when they arrest an illegal immigrant for a crime or assist U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement. Advocates for stricter enforcement of immigration laws pressure them to raid businesses suspected of employing illegal immigrants.

The police officials say they are only interested in arresting criminals; if they find the suspects are also illegal immigrants, they’ll contact ICE for further action.

“I’m not a zealot. I’m not planning on raiding any factories. I’m not planning on setting my troopers on the highway looking for illegals,” said Col. Brendan Doherty, superintendent of the state police. “But I will, in the performance of duties, have troopers follow through on an arrest.”

Others expressed concerns that their cooperation with federal authorities might deter witnesses or victims of crimes from coming forward because they fear deportation. Five years ago, a Guatemalan man who had reentered the country illegally was deported again after he testified as a witness to a murder in Central Falls.

“We do not have a policy, procedure or habit of checking [the immigration status of] people who call the police,” said Pawtucket police Capt. John Seebeck. “We do not run witnesses, complainants or victims. We can’t operate that way. If you do that, are you going to get the help you need [in the community]?”

Governor Carcieri’s March executive order on immigration directed the state police and state correctional officers to work with federal authorities to enforce some aspects of immigration law. The order also urged local police departments to investigate and determine the immigration status of anyone they take into custody, incarcerate, or investigate for any crime, and then notify federal authorities of those found to be illegal immigrants. The Rhode Island Police Chiefs Association backed that specific directive.

“We’re not looking for illegals on the basis of being illegal. We’re looking for criminals,” said Central Falls Chief Joseph Moran. “The people from their own nationality don’t want [the criminals] here. They want the white picket fence and the American dream.”

Providence Police Chief Dean M. Essserman has warned about a “chilling effect” if police were perceived as checking the immigration status of people without cause. Last week, Esserman attended a national conference on immigration policing and civil liberties sponsored by the Police Foundation in Washington, D.C., where police officials from around the country voiced the same concerns.

“We’re not proactively doing immigrant raids, or searching out people as if we’re the federal immigration police,” Esserman said. “Police across this country have been spending years in the community policing environment, working to develop trust with the community so they will report crime to us. Our job is to fight crime. But if we encounter you having committed a criminal act, then we want to know everything about you.”

THE ARREST of a Guatemalan immigrant named Marco Riz on rape and kidnapping charges this summer focused attention on how the police handle illegal immigrants they encounter. Over the last five years, Riz had been arrested by two police departments in Rhode Island and ordered deported by ICE. But he was never removed from the country.

The police in East Providence arrested him in 2003 for driving with a suspended license. The Providence police arrested him twice last year for assault and driving while intoxicated. ICE had issued a deportation order for Riz in 2004, which was upheld by a federal immigration judge last October –– a month after he’d been arrested for the second time in Providence. Riz remained in Rhode Island.

Two months ago, Riz allegedly carjacked a woman in Warwick and raped her in Providence’s Roger Williams Park. Facing questions about why Riz hadn’t been deported, ICE blamed the Providence police for not checking Riz’s immigration status when he was arrested last year.

Carcieri cited the case on local talk radio and national cable television programs, accusing Esserman and Providence Mayor David N. Cicilline of “being in the Dark Ages” on illegal immigration.

Cicilline defended the Police Department, noting that ICE had Riz in custody but let him go. Esserman said that when his department arrested Riz, it had followed a long-established procedure –– followed by other police departments in the state –– of faxing daily arraignment sheets to ICE for the federal agency to check for immigration violators. The Providence police also hadn’t found any warrants from ICE in a national criminal database.

Police officials say they routinely check the identities and fingerprints of suspects through national databases. If they find warrants from other agencies, they’ll contact those departments for possible further action.

If a suspect says he or she is foreign-born, the police will send an electronic query through the NLETS telecommunications system, which contacts the Law Enforcement Support Center administered by ICE. The Law Enforcement Support Center has access to about 100 million records of immigrant files kept by the Department of Homeland Security, including more than 250,000 previously deported felons, immigration fugitives and wanted criminals. It reports back on the suspect’s immigration status and also notifies the regional ICE office of the suspect’s arrest.

The Providence police used to just call ICE with questions, but the department began using NLETS last month, following the controversy over the Riz case. Other departments say they’ve used it a handful of times over the last year. Some chiefs say the response takes anywhere from a half-hour to four hours, so the police call the ICE agent on duty instead.

Even when ICE has a warrant, or the person’s immigration status is in question, the federal agency may tell the police to let the person go, the police chiefs say. “Our obligation to the feds ends when we notify them we’ve arrested an alien for a crime,” said Seebeck, of the Pawtucket police.

ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION is not a new issue for local law enforcement agencies. Twenty years ago, when an immigration agent was stationed at the Providence Police Department, the police caught a Peruvian national who was wanted for bank robbery and murder in Venezuela. Until recently, ICE had an agent working directly in the courts. He has since retired; his replacement is assigned to review the database of the Adult Correctional Institutions, looking for immigration violators among the inmates.

ICE asks the police departments to take the lead and call about suspects with questionable IDs, gang members or other criminals. Bruce Foucart, special agent from ICE’s Office of Investigations in Boston, stressed that ICE asks the police to focus on illegal immigrants involved in crime. “We don’t have the resources for you to focus on non-criminal activity,” Foucart said he tells the officers.

ICE can offer the police leverage, Foucart said. “Often in gang settings, they don’t rise to the level of federal prosecution,” Foucart said. “We’ll tell them, let us use our immigration authority. We’ll check on their status –– if they have criminal convictions, we’ll target them, get them off the streets of their communities.”

Meanwhile, as directed by the governor’s executive order, the state police and the Department of Corrections have applied, under the federal 287(g) program, for training in immigration issues. Those certified in the program are given access to the immigration databases maintained by ICE and the Department of Homeland Security, and, under the supervision of ICE, are trained in identifying and detaining alleged violators.

The state police and the ACI will each send 8 to 10 employees for five weeks of training; they are waiting to be accepted into the program. For ICE, having local police trained in the program is a “force multiplier,” Foucart said. Doherty sees the program as another investigative tool.

Other police chiefs aren’t interested. They say they don’t have the resources to have officers cross-deputized to a federal agency. Despite the public perception, the chiefs say, illegal immigrants make up a very small percentage of their criminals.

In Central Falls, Moran worries about the poor economy, drugs, the lack of education and jobs, and the impact of having more than 100 boarded-up houses in the small city. Economic factors are driving the city’s crime rate, not illegal immigration, he says.

Illegal immigration “is a national issue,” Moran said. “The problem is, it has to be dealt with on a national level as well. We’re trying to take care of our city and keep it safe.”

amilkovi@projo.com