Thread: Activists in Chicago say police colluding in deportations

Published September 11, 2015EFE

Pro-immigrant activists complained Friday that the Chicago Police Department was colluding with Immigration and Customs Enforcement through its disproportionate checking of undocumented immigrants for driving under the influence of alcohol, so they can be detained and deported.

Members of Organized Communities Against Deportations based their complaint on a report published this week in the daily Chicago Tribune, which said that of the 14 DUI checkpoints operating between March and August, 13 were in Black or Latino neighborhoods.

A previous study released in May, which covered four years, said that those minority neighborhoods were the target of 84 percent of police checkpoints, though at that time City Hall said the figures were "not accurate" and denied any racial profiling in a city that claims to be the most "welcoming" for immigrants in the country.

"These findings send a very clear message. In the city of Chicago the placement of DUI checkpoints has little to do with public safety concerns and everything to do with the color of the skin of the neighborhood residents," the OCAD said in a communique.

It said that for immigrant communities, these racialized police checkpoints can have "devastating effects" because two-thirds of the undocumented immigrants detained by the police for DUI wind up in the hands of ICE to be deported.

Activist Lissette Castillo told EFE that while Illinois classifies driving under the influence as a misdemeanor, ICE rates it as a "significant misdemeanor," which makes the undocumented nabbed for DUI a "priority for deportation."

"ICE can use this recently fabricated category as license to show up at a person's home, apprehend them without warning, hold them in a detention facility for months or even years, and, finally, deport them - without any regard for the person's familial or community ties, fulfillment of legal obligations, efforts taken to remedy past mistakes, or even if the offense happened decades ago," it said.

According to the OCAD communique, if immigrant communities are the targets of unjustified arrests, the Chicago Police Department should be "held accountable for its complicity in this deportation dragnet."

It added that if Chicago really wants to live up to its slogan as a "welcoming" city, it "needs to be transparent in its policing tactics and held accountable for targeting black and brown communities; and in the process abetting deportations." EFE

http://latino.foxnews.com/latino/new...-deportations/

Hey! That's great to see Chicago law enforcement trying to help us enforce US immigration law! Wonderful! Think about if all 800,000 state and local law enforcement in the US enforced US immigration law with the same vigor as they enforce US drug law? Oh my goodness, they could find and arrest 20 million illegal aliens a year, and still have time to attend their rapid deportation hearing to verify their status and order the deportation! Really, a Magistrate that sets bail bonds could issue the Deportations with a couple of hours of training.

Thank you Chicago Police Officers!

Now that's a good move to improve their public relations.

If you were a door to door widget salesman, wouldn't you frequent the areas that research has shown the most widget buyers live? Why should the application of law enforcement be any different? Of course all crime is the ultimate goal, but it makes sense to focus more attention to areas where the most crime is known to take place.