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  1. #1

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    MA Local police looking at ICE immigration program

    http://www.metrowestdailynews.com/top_s ... on-program



    Local police looking at ICE immigration program
    By David Riley/Daily News staff
    The MetroWest Daily News
    Posted Oct 07, 2010 @ 12:01 AM
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    As federal officials press the state to get on board with a national program to deport illegal immigrants who commit major crimes, local police chiefs are trying to get up to speed on the initiative.

    The program has also become a political football in the governor's race, with Republican Charlie Baker and independent Tim Cahill slamming Gov. Deval Patrick for not acting sooner. Baker recently accused Patrick of "turning a blind eye to the problem."

    Patrick's administration said it is now in talks with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, while suggesting the federal agency until now had done little to explain the program.

    "There's been a lack of consistency and clarity from ICE over the years as to what the parameters and restrictions of the program are, and what it is, if anything, they would like the state to do," said John A. Grossman, an undersecretary in the state Executive Office of Public Safety.

    Under the program, called Secure Communities, local and state police departments would automatically share fingerprints of all people arrested, checking them against a federal database, according to an ICE fact sheet.

    If there is a match, ICE would check the person's immigration status. The federal agency says it would prioritize and possibly seek to hold those accused of major crimes, such as murder or sex offenses.

    ICE hopes to have the program running nationally by 2013.

    Some immigration advocates worry the program could lead to deportation for people who have not committed serious crimes and could discourage immigrants from working with police.

    "The work of the local police is to keep local communities safe from crime," said Frank Soults, communications director for the Mass. Immigrant and Refugee Advocacy Coalition. "To do that, they need to have good relations with everyone living in the community, which is why many police chiefs are wary of being part of Secure Communities."

    In participating towns and cities, more than one-quarter of those deported had not committed a major crime, according to a study this year by the Center for Constitutional Rights, National Day Laborers' Organizing Network and the Kathryn O. Greenberg Immigration Justice Clinic of the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law.

    ICE has disputed those findings.

    Locally, police chiefs are reviewing what the program could mean for their departments.

    Framingham Police Chief Steven Carl could not be reached for comment yesterday. His department last year withdrew from a separate program that allowed officers to enforce immigration laws after Carl said U.S. authorities pressed the department to expand its role.

    Milford Police Chief Thomas O'Loughlin said there are legal nuances to work out between local and federal law enforcement, but for the most part, he has no problem with Secure Communities.

    "I don't have a beef, as long as they come and get them," he said.

    However, O'Loughlin said he does not think local authorities can participate in the program without the state's OK, because fingerprints are processed through a state system before going to ICE.

    There are potential conflicts to work out, he said. For example, while federal officials could ask for a suspect to be held for days, state law requires them to go to court the next business day, the Milford chief said.

    Hudson Police Chief Richard Braga said Secure Communities could work in his town if it deals only with illegal immigrants who have committed major crimes. But, he said, it could prove too much for a local department if handled more broadly.

    "I would strongly support a program that would enhance information sharing, and would help law enforcement hold and deport illegal aliens who have committed crimes," Braga said. "However, I would not embrace a plan that would serve to target law-abiding residents or those who commit minor infractions simply because they happen to be here illegally."

    In Marlborough, Police Chief Mark Leonard said that, based on a quick review of Secure Communities, he would support the program if it does indeed focus on "true criminal aliens."

    The measure may actually benefit immigrants, he said, by dealing with criminals who prey on their community from within.

    "We've had incidents where we've had people who will commit crimes against people in their community because they don't think people will report it to the police," Leonard said.

    Soults said Boston is now the only Massachusetts city participating. Washington and San Francisco have sought to opt out, he said, but it is unclear whether they have that option.

    "There's a lot that's confusing and unclear about this so far," he said.

    In an op-ed piece submitted to the Daily News, Jessica Vaughan of Franklin, director of policy studies at the Center for Immigration Studies, said claims of immigrants being likely to mistrust police are "unfounded and misleading." There is no evidence, she said, of a chilling effect or abuse of the program.

    Vaughan, whose group favors tighter immigration control, also questioned how people can trust law enforcement if officers must look the other way at immigration law violations.

    She wrote that the only people who need fear Secure Communities are those who commit serious crimes.

    Grossman said the Patrick administration had viewed a memo ICE asked the state to sign a year ago as a formality that required Massachusetts to do nothing differently. The state had not heard otherwise until ICE officials recently said so in the press, he said.

    "We don't believe we've held this up in any way," Grossman said. "There is at least now a suggestion that we have, which is why we are engaging with all due speed to figure out what the deal is."

  2. #2

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    U.S. pushes state to join security plan

    U.S. pushes state to join security plan
    By Maria Sacchetti
    The Boston Globe, October 6, 2010
    http://www.boston.com/news/local/massac ... ?page=full

    Federal officials say they are compelling Massachusetts law enforcement agencies, including the State Police, to join a national program that checks the immigration status of everyone arrested and fingerprinted by 2013, officials said yesterday.

    The planned rollout of the federal Secure Communities program has state officials, nonprofits, and local police chiefs scrambling to determine the program’s impact in Massachusetts and whether it conflicts with a policy barring the State Police from enforcing immigration law.

    Meanwhile, organizations that work with immigrants launched a series of community meetings last night to alert them to the the new initiative.

    The immigration checks would mark a dramatic shift for Massachusetts, where Boston is the only community to participate in the program. Police in other communities have largely avoided helping to enforce federal immigration laws over fears that it would discourage immigrants from coming forward to report crime. In 2007, Governor Deval Patrick reversed a plan by Governor Mitt Romney to have the State Police enforce immigration law, preferring to have the prisons do it instead.

    Federal immigration officials have been trying to expand in the state for at least a year and hoped to be in half the state’s counties by now, officials said. In 2009, the US Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement sent a letter urging state officials to sign a memorandum to 'establish a solid foundation’’ for 'bringing counties and police departments online.’’

    The document was never signed, a fact that has drawn criticism from Patrick’s rivals in the governor’s race. Republican Charles D. Baker and independent Timothy P. Cahill have accused the administration of delaying expansion of the Secure Communities program.

    John Grossman, an undersecretary at the state’s Executive Office of Public Safety, denied that the Patrick administration had delayed the program’s expansion. He said he had viewed ICE’s request to sign an agreement as an unnecessary formality.

    'It was our understanding that they didn’t need us to do anything in order to go forward and deploy this program,’’ he said. 'They didn’t have us sign anything before they deployed in Boston,’’ which served as a pilot for the program in 2006, two years before it officially became Secure Communities.

    Grossman said the state is still waiting for clearer signals from the federal government about the program’s schedule for expansion here.

    Brian P. Hale, spokesman for ICE, would not comment on the reasons for the delay in Massachusetts but said they were working with the Patrick administration to take Secure Communities statewide.

    'It’s all about . . . making sure the deployment is done in the right way,’’ Hale said. 'A lot of that requires some negotiations. We want to make sure the deployment in Massachusetts meets the common goal that we have, which is to take criminals off the streets and protect our communities.’’

    Grossman said the administration still has not said whether it supports the Secure Communities program in principle.

    'We have not taken a position yet because we are defining with ICE what that means,’’ said Grossman. 'We do have a position that serious criminals who are in this country illegally ought to be deported. But we also need to understand the parameters of this program.’’

    The goal of Secure Communities is to ensure that dangerous criminals are detained and deported, but it is raising concern nationwide that it is also netting minor offenders.

    Under the Secure Communities program, in which FBI and immigration databases are linked, the process of booking people who are arrested would automatically determine if they have criminal histories and alert federal immigration officials if they are in the country illegally, Hale said.

    Federal officials say that Secure Communities does not require local and state police to enforce immigration law. Only federal immigration officials will decide whether to hold a person for deportation.

    But the new program still made some officials uncomfortable. Many police agencies in Massachusetts work with ICE to arrest criminals, but they avoid targeting immigrants without legal papers, typically a civil violation, because they fear it could deter them from reporting crime.

    In Chelsea, Police Chief Brian Kyes worried that Secure Communities could erode trust in his city, where nearly 38 percent of the city’s residents are immigrants.

    'It would be a huge change from what we’re doing now,’’ said Kyes. 'This is something the Chelsea police would not want to be a part of. It’s my belief that it would be counterproductive to the relationships we’ve formed and the trust and confidence between the police and the community in the past few years.’’

    But in neighboring Everett, Chief Steven Mazzie praised the program. He said ICE would probably only have the staff to target major criminals.

    'We have a large immigrant population over here, but at that point if someone’s under arrest for a criminal matter, I see it only as a tool that we can use to get criminals off the street,’’ Mazzie said. 'I see it doing nothing but helping us keep our communities safer by removing people that don’t belong here, people that are committing criminal activity.’’

    A concern among immigrant advocates is that the program could be used to identify illegal immigrants whether or not they had committed major crimes.

    In Boston, where 27.5 percent of residents are foreign born, Boston police have turned over 526 people to federal immigration officials since 2008; of those, 246, or slightly less than half, were picked up on noncriminal immigration violations, according to federal records. The rest were criminals.

    Police Commissioner Edward Davis has said that he was confident that all were involved in criminal activity, though some had records from other states, which he said would not have registered in those statistics.

    His assertion could not be independently verified because ICE and police declined to release their names, citing privacy laws or policies.

    Last night, Centro Presente, a statewide nonprofit that advocates for immigrants, held a meeting in Somerville to inform immigrants about the program, and another is planned for next week in Boston, said Patricia Montes, executive director of the center. The ACLU of Massachusetts also opposes the program’s expansion.

    'It really goes back on Massachusetts’ promise not to enforce immigration law locally,’’ said Laura Rótolo, an ACLU attorney.

    Other groups praised the program, saying it is wise for local and state and federal police to share information.

    'It seems it should be a no-controversy item,’’ said Steve Kropper, cochairman of Massachusetts Citizens for Immigration Reform, a group favoring tougher limits on immigration. 'We’re very supportive of these kind of checks.’

  3. #3
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    Watch Lex,ky for results.I live there and it has always appeared to be a sanctuary city,regardless of what they say. I have personally seen one illegal after another,with Medicaid cards and food stamps not to mention the jobs they have taken.The city cancelled the childrens annual halloween parade due to budget constraints,but still funded the hispanic cultural celebration.There are buses (greyhound-type) that pick up and drop off illegals at a strip mall on a daily basis.Illegals who have killed citizens in drunk driving accidents, that are released from jail and disappear or flee the scene never to be seen again. I wish i had known napolitano was here before she left town!!!

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