Lawmakers and law-enforcement officials in several states are turning against a mandatory federal program that is a cornerstone of the Obama administration's immigration policy, says the Wall Street Journal. Secure Communities is designed to spot and deport illegal immigrants who have been convicted of crimes. Under the program, fingerprints of people booked into a jail are transmitted to a database reviewed by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE. If found to be in the U.S. illegally, they can face deportation.
Recently, such states as Massachusetts, New York, Illinois, and California have raised objections to the program's real-world effects: Although designed to remove criminals from the U.S., it has led to the deportation of thousands of people without criminal records. Critics of this approach in Democratic-leaning states say it inhibits immigrants from reporting crimes, undermining public safety, and needlessly breaks up families. Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn informed ICE that his state had decided to quit altogether. Secure Communities was "supposed to facilitate the removal of individuals convicted of the most serious of crimes who are residing in this country illegally," the governor's office said. Quinn said "more than a third" of those deported from the state through the program had never been convicted of a crime.
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A program that gives federal immigration officials access to the fingerprints of undocumented immigrants booked into local jails will start Tuesday across New York state despite staunch opposition from advocates and lawmakers, including Gov. Andrew Cuomo, reports the Wall Street Journal. New York City and 30 other jurisdictions will join the 31 communities that already have the program in place, including Suffolk, Nassau and Westchester counties.
Asked about the program, New York City Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly said "we prefer that they not do that here." "The federal government's position is that it's required under the law and they're doing it," he continued. "We're obviously complying." Secure Communities aims at identifying and deporting illegal immigrants who are convicted of crimes. But critics say it has resulted in the deportation of thousands of people who are accused of crimes but not convicted, and erodes the trust between immigrant communities and law enforcement.
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With border crossings at a 40-year low, the U.S. Border Patrol announced a new strategy that targets repeat crossers and tries to find out why they keeping coming, reports the Associated Press. For nearly two decades, the patrol has relied on blanketing heavily trafficked corridors for illegal immigrants with agents, pushing migrants to more remote areas where they would presumably be easier to capture and discouraged from trying again.
"The jury, for me at least, is out on whether that's a solid strategy," Chief Mike Fisher told AP. The new approach is more nuanced. Outlined in a 32-page document that took more than two years to develop, agents will draw on intelligence to identify repeat crossers and others perceived as security threats. "This whole risk-based approach is trying to figure out who are these people? What risk do they pose from a national security standpoint? The more we know, the better informed we are about identifying the threat and potential risk," he said. Yesterday, members of the House Homeland Security subcommittee asked Fisher why the new strategy didn't include any specific "metrics" that could help members of Congress and the public better understand if the border is secure.
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Weekend checkpoints set up along Los Angeles intersections were meant to catch those who had had too much to drink. But for years, says the New York Times, advocacy groups complained that the checkpoints unfairly targeted illegal immigrants, who cannot get driver's licenses. In March, the Los Angeles Police Department decided that it would no longer automatically impound the vehicles of drivers without licenses.
The change was a significant shift in the second-largest U.S. city, home to thousands of illegal immigrants who, like many other residents, see driving as the only viable way to move around a sprawling metropolitan area. It is in marked contrast to debates in other places around the country where local governments are cracking down harder on illegal immigrants living within their borders. The new policy faces a legal battle. Last month, the union representing police officers filed a lawsuit to stop the change, saying that it placed officers at risk and would make the city’s roads less safe. “We need to find a way to be compassionate, yes, but also keep the roads safe,” said Tyler Izen, president of the Los Angeles Police Protective League. The California attorney general is expected to issue an opinion in the coming days, and the matter will most likely be settled in court.
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For the second time in less than a month, President Barack Obama’s administration ran into a buzz saw at the Supreme Court in oral arguments Wednesday over Arizona’s law cracking down on illegal immigrants, reports Politico. Both conservative and liberal justices expressed deep skepticism about the federal government’s case against the core of the law: a provision requiring local law enforcement to check the immigration status of people arrested or even detained briefly for a traffic violation if they’re suspected of being in the country illegally.
The outcome could be felt in states nationwide that have passed similar laws or are considering them. And there could be significant consequences at the polls in November, whichever way the court rules.
The justices clearly were not swayed by the Justice Department's argument. The skepticism was strongest among the conservative justices, but even a couple of liberals said they’re perplexed by the federal government’s claim that Arizona is violating the Constitution by requiring police to perform immigration status checks that they already can request at their own discretion.
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Senate Democrats are making plans to force a floor vote on legislation that would invalidate Arizona’s controversial immigration statute if the Supreme Court upholds the law this summer, reports the Washington Post. Sen. Charles Schumer (D-NY) is announcing the fallback legislation today, a day before the Supreme Court hears arguments in a suit to determine whether Arizona had the authority to enact the 2010 state crackdown.
The legislation would have little chance of passing in a stalemated Senate or being approved by a GOP-held House, but it would allow Democrats to push their electoral advantage with Latino voters just as the presidential campaign heats up in July. The plan is to allow Democrats a route to express displeasure with the Arizona law if the court allows it to stand, and it would force Republicans to take a clear position on the law during the height of the presidential campaign. The immigration law is deeply unpopular with Latino voters, who could be key to the outcome of the presidential and Senate races in several Western states. “If the court upholds the Arizona law, Congress can make it clear that what Arizona is doing goes beyond what the federal government and what Congress ever intended,” Schumer told the Post.
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As the Supreme Court prepares to hear oral arguments Wednesday on Arizona's immigration law, the Arizona Republic notes that much has changed in the two years since Gov. Jan Brewer signed into law the toughest immigration-enforcement statutes in the nation. The state's sizable illegal-immigrant population, one of the driving factors behind passage of the law, has shrunk dramatically. The state hasn't passed a single immigration bill since then, ending the passage of a string of enforcement measures leading up to the law. And the state's large but politically anemic Latino population is showing signs of gaining political muscle.
There have been changes at the national level, as well. The year after the law passed, more than 20 other states introduced bills that also gave police the power to question and arrest suspected illegal immigrants encountered during police stops, the cornerstone of Arizona's law. Five bills passed. But since then, the rush to pass Arizona-style immigration laws has fizzled. None of the five states that considered similar laws this year has approved them. The high court's decision is expected this summer and will likely affect similar laws in other states.
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Random deployment of Border Patrol agents might work best to prevent illegal border crossings, according to a study from the RAND Corp. reported by California Watch. The study, funded by the Department of Homeland Security's Science and Technology Directorate, found that combining historical data on illegal crossings with a bit of unpredictability would nab the highest fraction of border crossers. The U.S.-Mexico border spans nearly 2,000 miles, and there is no way to saturate every mile with enough agents to catch every illegal immigrant or smuggler, said Joel Predd, study co-author and a researcher at RAND.
The Border Patrol therefore must develop effective strategies to deploy a limited number of agents, he said. In the past, the Border Patrol stationed agents by relying heavily on historical trends of where border crossers were apprehended. The trouble with that strategy is that once crossers notice increased enforcement, they might alter their routes and actually have a higher rate of success in unpatrolled areas. For instance, after the Border Patrol launched Operation Gatekeeper in 1994 to halt the flow of traffic through San Diego, illegal entries there plunged, but overall apprehensions continued to climb.
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A 15-year-old South Texas boy has been charged with nine counts of murder after he crashed a minivan packed with illegal immigrants near McAllen, killing nine of them, reports the Associated Press. The boy, who is not being identified because he is a juvenile, cried Monday during a probable cause hearing at a juvenile detention facility.
Border Patrol agents pulled over the van April 10. As it stopped, one person jumped from the vehicle and ran. When agents pursued him the van sped off. It crashed a few blocks away, scattering a parking lot with bodies. The driver escaped, but was arrested two days later at his home. A detective who attended the probable cause hearing said the teen told the judge that if he didn't drive the van they were going to kill his family. The teen didn't say who "they" were. State prosecutors can pursue the felony murder charges because the deaths occurred during the commission of a felony. A judge will eventually decide whether the boy will be tried as an adult.
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Investigators found no evidence that Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials intentionally misled Congress or state and local officials about the...
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Washington has become the 34th state to activate fully the controversial Secure Communities program, reports the Seattle Times. The program allows the fingerprints of everyone booked into local jails to be checked against a national immigration database.
Established in 2008, Secure Communities has been divisive almost from the start, with immigrant advocates saying it snags immigrants who've committed minor offenses. States from California to New York have fought its implementation. Secure Communities uses fingerprints instead of names. The prints, once collected, are funneled through a state database to the FBI, where ICE can access them, checking them against its own databases for matches. Federal officials credit the program with helping to remove 129,000 convicted criminal immigrants from the U.S. since 2008. Craig Keller, with a group called Respect Washington, declared "sanctuary for criminal aliens is now evaporating."
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A national weeklong roundup of immigrants with criminal histories or prior deportation ended last week with the detention of 3,168 people nationwide, reports the Los Angeles Times. The targets were the types of people that immigration agents say are their highest priority for deportation.
The Times describes what the roundup was like, giving the example of agents going after a man who had been convicted of battery in 1986 and 1994, and had been deported, returning illegally. A little past 4 a.m., agents head to his home in a caravan that includes a van and SUVs with tinted windows. They were there without a warrant, and he didn't emerge. Federal officials prefer enforcement programs such as Secure Communities, which automatically compares fingerprints of incoming arrestees with immigration records. That program has come under fire because it has netted many low-level offenders or those with no criminal convictions.
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Anti-immigration proposals have lost momentum in state legislatures, reports USA Today. Republican legislators are struggling to find support for laws that would give local police more powers to crack down on illegal immigrants. Arizona passed its landmark illegal immigration bill in 2010, and Utah, Alabama, Georgia, South Carolina and Indiana passed similar laws last year. But portions of all those laws have been blocked by federal courts and will face costly legal challenges, which could ultimately be decided when the Supreme Court reviews Arizona's law next month.
Republican lawmakers say the threat of those lawsuits is one reason legislative leaders have put the brakes on immigration bills, or abandoned them altogether, as they wait to see how this election year plays out. "I think the pendulum has stopped a little closer … to the middle this year," said Suman Raghunathan, policy director of the Progressive States Network, which opposes state immigration enforcement laws.
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Hundreds of children are held around the world in secure and remote detention facilities, according to a new report by the The International Detention Coalition (IDC), which has formed a coalition to stop the detention of children.
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Despite repeated statements from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement that its main deportation targets are undocumented immigrants considered threats to the public or national security, more than 1,000 people have been flagged for deportation in Austin's Travis County in the past three years after arrests for minor infractions like traffic tickets or public intoxication, an Austin American-Statesman analysis found. ICE data show that the Travis County Jail has become one of the busiest — and most efficient — deportation hubs in the U.S. since federal immigration agents boosted their presence in the jail about four years ago and later began using a controversial program known as Secure Communities to check the immigration status of everyone booked into the jail.
Since its 2008 launch in Harris County, Secure Communities — which helps agents identify potential deportation targets by comparing fingerprints against immigration databases — has been promoted as a tool to help target "the most dangerous and violent offenders" in the nation's jails and prisons. ICE says it has the money and manpower to deport about 400,000 people a year, so it focuses on serious felons, repeat offenders, gang members, and other public threats, and instructed its employees last year to use more discretion in deciding who to flag for deportation. In Travis County, twice as many people have been deported after a misdemeanor arrest in recent years than have been deported after a felony arrest.
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