Washington » Salt Lake City Police Chief Chris Burbank joined fellow law enforcement officials from across the nation in a meeting Wednesday with Attorney General Eric Holder to relay concerns over Arizona's new immigration law the cops say will dampen crime-fighting efforts.

Burbank and the other police chiefs met with Holder for an hour at the Justice Department, sharing fears the Arizona law would deter witnesses or crime victims from coming forward and damage relations between officers and the Latino community. The Arizona law requires police to verify the legal status of anyone reasonably suspected of being in the country illegally.

"It's important, especially for people in the federal government, in Washington, D.C., to understand the local concerns. This becomes a very local issue," Burbank said after the meeting. "How does an individual officer interact with members of the community and keep a level of trust when they are forced to engage in what is profiling or racial policing practices?"

Burbank's comments come as his office released a new report on the impact of SB81, a 2008 state law that allows local law enforcement officials in the state to be cross-deputized as immigration officers.

Utah's capital city and most other municipalities have not opted into the program. Burbank's report backs up opponents' claims that SB81 would make people -- white and Latino -- less willing to report a crime. It also rebutted the warnings by some supporters the law was needed to deal with an increase in Latino-involved crime.

"The data suggest that law enforcement is likely to see everything they fear: a reduction in crime-reporting and public trust," says the report's conclusion. Burbank was one of the authors of the study completed by the Consortium for Police Leadership in Equity.

Burbank, Salt Lake City's chief since 2006, told reporters that Latinos are not responsible for more crime than any other population percentage in his city. He also said that further alienating the Latino community as does Arizona's law is the opposite of a crime-fighting tool.

"This effort will not reduce crime, in fact, the majority of us believe it will increase crime in our communities and that's why we've stood up and taken this stance," Burbank said.

Tooele County Sheriff Frank Park, head of the Utah Sheriff's Association and the Western States Sheriff's Association, has a different take.

Park says Arizona's law might need to be tweaked but that local and state law enforcement need to do something to reduce the illegal immigration problem causing big headaches along the border.

"We up here in the northern states, we have a little bit of a problem but nothing like they do," Park said. His deputies routinely check the legal status of people incarcerated in the county jail -- as required by SB81 -- but he notes that he doesn't have the manpower to pull over people who might appear to be undocumented.

Asked about the idea of driving a wedge between police and Latino communities, as the police chiefs argued Wednesday in Washington, Park disagreed.

"I see that the criminal element from Mexico has a major hold on a lot of the people who are here from Mexico, who are here illegally," Park said. "People might be afraid to report crimes, but by the same token, we've got to take a look at the criminal element."

Burbank's trip to the nation's capital was paid for by the Police Executive Research Forum, a Washington, D.C.-based national membership organization of progressive police executives from the largest city, county, and state law enforcement agencies.