Mayoral candidate Richard Romero has weighed in on the debate about whether or not the Denny’s robbery and murder was attributable to immigration policies of the police department.

Rather than an issue of immigration, he said, it’s a crime problem.

“They are criminals terrorizing our City and they must be dealt with as criminals,” he said. “This is a crime issue.”

“It’s the Mayor’s job to provide law and order,” Romero continued, “and right now, crime is out of control. The border patrol and immigration customs enforcement — or ICE — are in full operation in our city. We don’t need our police doing the work of federal immigration enforcement. We need our police doing gang intervention work.”