Activists, lawmakers work toward immigration reform in Hartford (video)

Published: Tuesday, February 26, 2013; Last Updated: Wednesday, February 27, 2013 12:26 AM EST

By Mary E. O’Leary
moleary@nhregister.com

HARTFORD — As immigration authorities started releasing a number of detainees across the country to save money, state Rep. Gary Holder-Winfield introduced legislation here that would present a united response from local and state law enforcement to the federal Secure Communities policy.

Also Tuesday, a number of groups and lawmakers came together to form the CT Immigrant Rights Alliance to work for comprehensive immigration reform that gets behind an expanded response to Secure Communities, as well as support for drivers’ licenses for the undocumented.

Under Secure Communities, Immigration and Custom Enforcement can issue a request to local officials to detain for 48 hours an undocumented individual whose arrest has been adjudicated so they can pick them up.

Holder-Winfield is proposing the Connecticut Trust Act that would require local police departments to follow the same guidelines on responding to a detainer request that the state Department of Correction now uses as recommended by Gov. Dannel P. Malloy.

The alliance Tuesday heard from the undocumented who have been caught up in Secure Communities, including Josemarie Islas of New Haven.

He was charged with conspiracy to commit robbery last year, but that was dropped after witnesses testified he was elsewhere. He was turned over to ICE by judicial marshals and has been ordered deported because he illegally entered the country multiple times in 2005. Islas, who has helped to support his sister’s family, plans to appeal the order.

Michael Lawlor, undersecretary for criminal matters in the Malloy administration, said Islas “clearly does not fit any definition of a serious or violent offender.”

Detainers, according to the Department of Homeland Security, are supposed to apply to convicted felons and terrorism suspects and not to those who have been found not guilty or convicted of a misdemeanor. ICE also applies it to those with outstanding deportation orders or multiple instances of illegal entry.

Several studies have shown, however, that a large number of the individuals don’t fit into those categories with several states and cities now only cooperating with ICE in the cases of serious criminals.

A review of nearly 1 million detainers issued from 2008 to 2012 by the Transactional Records Access Clearing House through a Freedom of Information Act request found that more than two of three detainees, or 77.4 percent, had no criminal record; the remaining 22.6 percent had a criminal record with 8.6 percent with the most serious offenses.

The Transactional Records Access Clearing House is a data gathering, data research and data distribution organization at Syracuse University.

A report in USA Today, referring to ICE documents, said the agency set deportation targets and to meet them tracked traffic violations and other low level offenses of undocumented residents.

ICE spokesman Ross Feinstein said ICE issued a new detainer guideline in December 2012 that restricts detainers against individuals “arrested for minor misdemeanor offenses such as traffic offenses and other petty crimes.”

He said for fiscal 2012, some 55 percent or 225,390 of those removed were convicted of felonies or misdemeanors. Feinstein didn’t detail the misdemeanors, but said 1,215 were convicted of homicide; 5,557 were guilty of sexual offenses; 40,448 were convicted of drug crimes and 36,166 were guilty of driving under the influence.

In Connecticut, each detainer request is reviewed by correction, which then only holds serious criminals for ICE.

Lawlor said this is now the policy of state police and judicial marshals, who oversee court lockups and who previously had automatically turned over defendants to ICE.

The policy on correction was initially put in place last April and is part of a legal settlement between the state and an immigration clinic at the Yale Law School.

Lawlor said with the expansion of the policy to individuals in the custody of the judicial marshals, they will be transferred to correction, where the detainer request from ICE will be reviewed.

Lawlor said the state is onboard with ICE’s definition as to whom will be turned over, with the exception of those convicted of drunken driving.

Lawlor said they based their policy on deportation rules for those who are not citizens, but are here legally. A drunken driving conviction for a permanent resident would not result in deportation, he said. The undersecretary said ICE already reimburses the state for any additional costs it may incur in responding to detainers.

Holder-Winfield, D-New Haven, who is also running for mayor of New Haven, said Secure Communities pushes immigration enforcement down to the local level.

“It doesn’t increase safety as individuals are less likely to call police if they need them or be witnesses. It does not make things safer for them or for citizens,” Holder-Winfield said in a conference call with representatives from Massachusetts, California and New York.

New York City Councilwoman Melissa Mark-Viverito, who was on the call, said the council is expected this week to update its Secure Communities policy to apply to individuals picked up and held by New York police, as well as those held by corrections and sent to Rikers Island.

Massachusetts is also considering its own trust act.

Mark-Viverito said protections for low level offenders will be across the board now and will keep local police from contributing to a “broken immigration system.”

ICE started to release detainees in several states in the past few days , including Hudson County, N.J.; Polk County, Texas; Broward County, Fla.; and New Orleans; and from centers in Arizona, Alabama, Georgia and New York.

It is in response to sequestration, which will start to put $85 billion in cuts into effect throughout the federal budget on Friday. This is in addition to $1.2 trillion in cuts already agreed to over 10 years. ICE said it will continue to proceed with deportation procedures for those released from custody this week. No one was from Connecticut.

In Hartford, Ana Maria Rivera-Forastieri of Junta for Progressive Action, said the press conference on the alliance was held to show local support for immigration reform. “We are all fighting for the same thing. We all thought that it was important that we join forces and maximize capacity for comprehensive immigration reform,” she said.

Malloy two years ago signed a bill that allows undocumented students to attend public state colleges at the in-state tuition rate. Lawlor said the governor is studying the proposed drivers’ license bill for the undocumented and will have a statement by Monday when it is up for a public hearing.

House Speaker Brendan Sharkey, D-Hamden, issued a statement applauding the alliance for “speaking up on behalf of the thousands in our state that contribute to their communities every day and deserve better.”

Activists, lawmakers work toward immigration reform in Hartford (video) - The Middletown Press : Serving Middletown, CT