Thread: ACLU seeks county policies on immigrants in Maryland

ACLU seeks county policies on immigrants in Maryland
by Sebastian Montes | Staff Writer
This story was corrected on Dec. 17, 2008.

In a first-time initiative modeled after projects in other states, the Maryland chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union is probing every county in the state to see if their stated policies toward immigrants match up with practice.

The state ACLU sent requests under the Maryland Public Information Act to all 23 Maryland counties and to Baltimore City Dec. 10 asking for "any internal or public statute or regulation of documented and undocumented immigrants," especially English-only requirements; policies that restrict access to social services, housing and employment and participation in enforcing federal immigration law, said Ajmel Quereshi, an ACLU attorney who will head up the project for two years.

Similar probes by other ACLU chapters have found instances where local governments were exercising powers beyond what they had publicly acknowledged, he said.

"So we're wondering if that's the case in Maryland. These types of [requests] in other states have led to the uncovering of policies — formal, informal — that target immigrants" and hinder immigrants' trust in local governments and police agencies, he said.

As of Tuesday morning, Carroll and Anne Arundel counties had told the ACLU they were working on the request, while Kent County responded that they do not have any such regulations, according to an ACLU spokeswoman.

The Maryland Public Information Act gives government agencies 30 days to respond. The ACLU will work with advocates in those counties to "get on the ground and see how those laws are being enforced" before analyzing "state and constitutional questions," Quereshi said.

As examples, he pointed to inconsistent practices on whose immigration status was checked; how long or for what reason people were detained before being charged; and situations where suspects were detained on charges that never materialized and were then simply handed over to federal immigration agents.

Dubbed the Immigrant Rights Project, the initiative comes amid a surge of measures across the country — Quereshi said 1,500 were proposed and 240 passed last year — a handful of them in Maryland.

Last year, Gaithersburg city leaders passed an anti-solicitation ordinance that the state Attorney General later opined was unconstitutional. This spring, Frederick County Sheriff Chuck Jenkins enrolled in the federal 287g program to deputize officers and correctional facilities. Since August, Anne Arundel County Executive Jack Leopold (R) has required county contractors to prove U.S. citizenship and last week began more vigorously notifying U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement of detainees who are immigrants.

And in Montgomery County, County Executive Isiah Leggett (D) is in internal discussions over enacting stricter measures for handling illegal immigrants accused of serious crimes.

Steps such as Frederick County's are the most troubling, Quereshi said, so the ACLU helped the state's largest immigrant advocacy group sue the Frederick sheriff earlier this month for information on arrests made under the 287g program. In the lawsuit filed in Montgomery County Circuit Court, Casa of Maryland claims that many of the arrests have been made under racially discriminatory or otherwise questionable pretexts.

Sheriff Jenkins bristles at the accusation. At a Help Save Maryland rally Dec. 8 in Rockville, he was adamant that enrolling in 287g was motivated only by what he has seen as a steady increase in serious crimes committed by illegal immigrants.

"This is about saving America on a grass-roots level," he said, adding that the program has led to "not one complaint" and "not one illegal arrest" and describing the process as only an "extra step" in the normal course of criminal investigations.

Among the 261 people that his office has handed over to federal agents since April — 8.5 percent of the Frederick jail's intake — were nine MS-13 gang members, a "trained Nicaraguan sniper," "former El Salvadoran guerillas" and others arrested for assaults, sex crimes and domestic abuse, he said.

In front of the standing-room-only crowd of more than 100 at the Rockville library, Help Save Maryland director Brad Botwin laid out a strategy to bolster their lobbying efforts, including more fundraising and a more concerted push in the coming state legislative session, which begins Jan. 14.

"We're going to turn you into a monster to get out there to Annapolis and change things," said Botwin, a Derwood resident who formed the group last year along the model of similar groups in Virginia.


www.gazette.net

State ACLU Is Probing Anti-Immigrant Policies
Review Seeks Details of Local Initiatives

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By Aaron C. Davis
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, December 18, 2008; Page T03

The American Civil Liberties Union of Maryland has launched a review of local efforts to crack down on undocumented immigrants, saying a patchwork of increasingly harsh policies might be violating some residents' rights.

In announcing the project, the group singled out two moves it is questioning: an initiative by Frederick County officials to use local police to identify and help deport illegal immigrants and an Anne Arundel County effort to crack down on county contractors that employ illegal immigrants.

The civil rights group has set up an office to review the laws and to challenge those it thinks have gone too far.

"We need to get a sense of how these laws are being enforced and then see how they're impacting the immigrant community," said Ajmel Quereshi, the ACLU attorney who will head the effort, called the Immigrants Rights Project. "If the laws are hurting those communities, then we will review the constitutionality and see if there are" grounds to challenge, he said.
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ACLU chapters and immigrant rights groups in other states have begun similar efforts, although many are not as organized as that in Maryland. Nationwide, the ACLU says about 1,500 anti-immigrant ordinances were introduced by local lawmakers last year, touching on topics including education, employment, housing and voting.

Quereshi said that Maryland has avoided some of the more sweeping laws approved in other states and that he hopes forcing discussion on such proposals before they become law will cause legislators to think twice before supporting them.

"Maryland is not as grave as other states," he said, "but if we can spearhead an effort to address these laws, it could provide a model for others in the mid-Atlantic region."

Frederick Sheriff Chuck Jenkins was the first law enforcement official in Maryland to sign a 287(g), an agreement local jurisdictions can make with the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement that provides training for police and correctional officers to enforce immigration laws. ICE agents also are placed in local detention centers to question and process detained immigrants for deportation.

In the first six months of the agreement, about 9 percent of those arrested and taken to Frederick detention centers were determined to be illegal immigrants, Jenkins has said. More than 180 had been put on track for deportation, he said in October. He added that the effort was helping to identify gang members and people with criminal histories.

"I believe 90 percent of the people in this county support this," he said.

Anne Arundel police cooperation with ICE aided in a raid on a local painting company to search for illegal immigrants. County officials have said the collaboration between local law enforcement and federal authorities is a valuable tool for enforcing immigration law.

Quereshi has begun the review by filing public records requests with all 23 Maryland counties and Baltimore City, seeking not only specifics on all immigrant-related laws but also policies on how immigrants are treated in police custody and documents that might show attempts by local lawmakers to target immigrants. Among the information sought:


· Documents showing executive orders or internal policies regarding treatment of immigrants -- legal or otherwise -- before, during or after their arrests.

· Policies on how social services or other benefits are provided or denied to immigrants.

· Copies of communication between local lawmakers and ICE regarding enforcement of federal immigration law.

· Policies on the sale or lease of residential property to documented or undocumented immigrants.

Casa de Maryland, the state's largest Latino advocacy group, sued the Frederick Sheriff's Office last month over what Casa said was the agency's refusal to release some of the same public information. Casa requested a copy of the agreement between the county and ICE in March. The group's suit alleges that the county has given conflicting justifications for withholding the agreement even as evidence has mounted that county police are engaging in racial profiling to arrest illegal immigrants.

According to a Casa analysis of Frederick statistics, 217 of 221 people charged with immigration violations in recent months have been from Latin America. Many have been arrested for minor traffic violations, such as failure to properly display license plates, the group contends.


Staff writer Pamela Constable contributed to this report.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/co ... 00072.html

Were I in a position to demand anything, I would demand an audit of the contributors keeping the ACLU in business. I doubt if their lawyers are working pro-bono. I wonder if my precious tax dollars are somehow funding the group. Silly question, I know, since my money is apparently going to LaRaza and ACORN.

It's my understanding the ACLU receives legal fees and expenses whenever they win a CIVIL RIGHTS lawsuit. I've also heard they often receive fees even when they lose. I've written my congressmen but it seems there's no way this side of revolution to close the money spigot.