August 6, 2013 by David Olson
pe.com

Opponents of a federal program that trains sheriff’s deputies to screen jail inmates for immigration status have collected more than 2,700 signatures urging the Riverside County Sheriff’s Department to end its participation in the program, immigrant-rights activists said.

Members of Inland Congregations United for Change and other groups this morning presented 500 signed cards and letters to a representative of Sheriff Stanley Sniff to ask the sheriff to not renew the county’s 287g agreement with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

The Riverside County Sheriff’s Department is one of about three dozen law-enforcement agencies nationwide that participate in 287g, under which local officials trained by ICE ask some inmates about their birthplaces and other information that could indicate they are in the country illegally.

After today, immigrant-rights activists will present an additional 50 cards and letters each day – either in person or by mail – to the sheriff’s office, Karen Borja, an ICUC organizer, told me.

“We want to make sure he gets pressure from the community and people throughout the county – from here to North Shore (on the Salton Sea) – that we want the 287g agreement” to not be renewed, she said.

The cards and letters were collected by six Catholic, United Church of Christ, Presbyterian and evangelical congregations, Borja said. Letters from several clergy members, including Auxiliary Bishop Rutilio del Riego of the Roman Catholic Diocese of San Bernardino, also were presented to the sheriff’s office.

At a June immigration forum, Sniff said the department was considering whether to drop out of the program. The sheriff has not made a decision, Jessica Gore, an assistant for Sniff, told me.

Supporters of the program say it helps identify criminals who are in the country illegally, including those who may not be flagged by the much larger Secure Communities, in which fingerprints of all jail inmates are checked with a federal immigration database.

Jessica Vaughan, of the anti-illegal-immigration Center for Immigration Studies, told me last year that only half of jail inmates are in the database, so 287g can identify those “fly under the radar.”

Opponents of 287g allege that Latinos are singled out for questioning and that minor offenders – not just violent criminals – are deported under the program.

Borja said the program undermines the relationship between immigrants and the sheriff’s office, because undocumented immigrants fear that contacting police could lead to deportation.

“It really discourages families in immigrant communities from reporting crime,” she said. “It creates fear.”

Borja said more cards and letters will be collected over the next two weekends at four additional congregations.

The 287g agreement the San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Department had with ICE recently expired, but the sheriff’s office intends to continue in the program once a new contract is ironed out with ICE, sheriff’s department spokeswoman Jodi Miller said. Sheriff’s department officials and ICE are now negotiating the details of the agreement, she said.

http://blog.pe.com/2013/08/06/immigr...participation/