Friday, July 31, 2009
Maryland to be part of effort to identify ‘criminal aliens'
Inmates will be checked against federal databases
by Sebastian Montes

In one of President Barack Obama's first forays into immigration reform, Maryland's five largest jurisdictions are expected to implement a federal program next year that cross-checks the fingerprints of everyone processed in their jails against federal databases to better identify illegal immigrants.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's "Secure Communities" program was introduced in 50 jurisdictions last year and is projected to be in all of the nation's local jails by 2013. Montgomery, Prince George's, Baltimore and Anne Arundel counties and Baltimore city will be the state's first jurisdictions to take part.

Under the program, local law enforcement agents run every inmate's fingerprints through an FBI database and a database of all legal immigrants. Inmates determined to be illegal immigrants are flagged to be deported after they serve their sentence.

ICE says Secure Communities will prioritize for deportation violent criminals serving sentences longer than a year.

The Secure Communities program, however, has its share of detractors. Some defense attorneys and immigrant advocates say that early deportations are common, sometimes even before a suspect's trial. And, critics charge that previous enforcement efforts were supposed to prioritize dangerous criminals but sometimes failed to do so.

"Everybody is in a state of confusion," said Kerry O'Brien, director of the legal team for Casa of Maryland. "ICE is sending very mixed signals. Sometimes it's only the worst criminals, other times it's a fingerprint box and a piece of software."

In their fiscal 2010 Homeland Security appropriations bills, the House earlier this summer approved $200 million for Secure Communities and the Senate, $196 million. Conference committee review is expected in the fall.

Once approved, the five Maryland jurisdictions will implement Secure Communities sometime in 2010, said ICE spokeswoman Gillian Brigham. The rest of Maryland should be enrolled by 2013.

In Montgomery County, news of Secure Communities comes less than six months after County Executive Isiah Leggett began requiring county police to send ICE the names of everyone arrested and charged with crimes of violence and gun violations.

Questions over the logistics of implementing Secure Communities and whether local jurisdictions can opt out have yet to be answered.

County Attorney Leon Rodriguez will hash over those issues with ICE officials Sept. 3, but so far, County Executive Isiah Leggett (D) does not see cause for concern, said his spokesman, Patrick K. Lacefield.

"This is going to be happening in the entire country; this is the shape of things to come," Lacefield said. "We have always said that immigration is the feds' responsibility. Well, here they're saying they're going to do this piece."

"It's just a question of roll-out and a question of detail," Lacefield added.

A spokesman for Baltimore Mayor Sheila Dixon was unable to find any city staffers who were aware that the city was slated for the program.

A spokesman for Prince George's County Executive Jack B. Johnson was unfamiliar with Secure Communities and was not able to contact county staff who were.

Criminal deportations soaring

Under ICE's Criminal Alien Program, federal agents already pore over inmate logs sent by local jails. The agency estimates that the United States has between 300,000 and 450,000 immigrants serving time in local, state and federal prisons.

The number of immigration warrants issued through the Criminal Alien Program skyrocketed from fewer than 32,000 in 2006 to more than 220,000 last year.

ICE has doubled the number of criminals it has picked up for deportation from Montgomery County jails each of the past two years. In 2007, ICE removed 172 such inmates from county jails, according to county officials. In 2008, the number mushroomed to 274, and through July 28, agents have picked up 320 for deportation this year.

ICE officials would not comment on what is driving the increase in Montgomery County, but did point out that funding for the deportations from the nation's jails grew from $138 million in fiscal 2007 to $189 million in fiscal 2009.

Possibly a ‘powerful tool'

Marc Rosenblum, senior policy analyst for the Washington-based Migration Policy Institute, says Secure Communities should prove a "powerful tool" in identifying dangerous criminals for deportation.

He said that unlike ICE's controversial 287g program, which enables officers to make immigration-based arrests, Secure Communities doesn't rely on nuanced training and the discretion of local law enforcement officials.

But the program is so new that advocates have yet to gauge how prioritizing the worst criminals plays out at a community level.

"That is a little bit opaque; we don't know how that's going to work," Rosenblum said.

Immigrant advocates worry Secure Communities could encourage local officers to make arrests along ethnic or racial lines and that it will damage immigrants' trust of local police.

Montgomery County's shift in immigration policy dealt a blow to that relationship, and Secure Communities will only deepen the mistrust, said O'Brien, of Casa of Maryland, which has joined a national campaign against the program.

"It's very disappointing," O'Brien said. "If it comes through as pre-conviction checking and deportation for minor crimes and accusation of minor crimes, it's completely devastating.

"Every single person who goes into a jail gets screened, so the word on the street is going to be that if you have a beer in the park and get caught, you're going to be deported. All cooperation will dry up."

http://www.gazette.net/stories/07312009 ... 2523.shtml