Homeland Security deletes immigration enforcement success stories from website

By Stephen Dinan
The Washington Times
Thursday, July 19, 2012

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano is not a fan of a big part of the 287(g) program, which allows state and local police to enforce federal immigration laws — but until Thursday her department’s website didn’t get that message.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the part of her agency that handles the 287(g) agreements with states and localities, had a Web page dedicated to success stories from the program, pointing to many of the dangerous criminal aliens who had been taken off the streets after local authorities nabbed them for another offense.

But after Rep. Bob Goodlatte, Virginia Republican, pointed out the contradiction during a House Judiciary Committee hearing Thursday, Ms. Napolitano wasted little time in removing it.

“I would tell the people who are working on the website, take it down,” she said during the hearing. And even before the hearing gaveled to a close, the page was gone.

The 287(g) program has two parts: task-force agreements, which empower state and local police to process suspects for immigration violations, and the jail model, which only gets local authorities involved after someone has been booked into a jail or prison.

Ms. Napolitano said the task-force model costs 10 times as much per deportation as the jail model or as Secure Communities, another program designed to check jails and prisons for potentially deportable immigrants.

Hours after the Supreme Court last month upheld the part of Arizona’s law empowering local police to question immigration status of those they believe to be in the country illegally, Ms. Napolitano canceled the seven task-force agreements her department had with Arizona law enforcement agencies.

At Thursday’s hearing Mr. Goodlatte tried to find out why — and pointed to the list of success stories on ICE’s website.

“Why are you touting them if they’re success stories in a program that you think is otherwise flawed?” he said, adding that the program has proved to be popular with departments in his own state of Virginia.

“There may be some success stories,” Ms. Napolitano replied, but she said they were switching to the more cost-effective models.

“It doesn’t work. The program is expensive, and it doesn’t work the way Congress intended,” she said.

She and President Obama have taken steps recently to try to restrict the classes of illegal immigrants eligible for deportation, making it less likely that average illegal immigrants will be deported and instead focusing on those who have criminal records or have committed multiple immigration violations.

Homeland Security deletes immigration enforcement success stories from website - Washington Times