Thread: Secure Communities' end raises concerns

Secure Communities' end raises concerns

Published: Dec. 7, 2014 Updated: 10:43 p.m.

FILE PHOTO: PAUL RODRIGUEZ , STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER

Both sides of the immigration debate are wondering what will happen now that the detainment program has shut down.

Immigration rights supporters had long argued for an end to the Secure Communities Program, a controversial strategy of having police detain people on behalf of federal agents.

President Obama shut down the program last month as part of his executive actions on immigration. But hegave the same people something else to worry about: the president’s new Priority Enforcement Program, or PEP.

“We’re all going to be keeping a very close eye on how PEP plays out on a local level and whether past problems related to overbroad enforcement, racial profiling and civil rights violations are going to repeat,” said Annie Lai, UC Irvine assistant clinical professor of law and co-director of the school’s Immigrant Rights Clinic.

Those supporting Secure Communities, who argued that dismantling it was a mistake that will hamper public safety, aren’t sure about PEP, either.

“As a practical matter, that means large numbers of people living here illegally, involved in crimes, will not face deportation because there’s no way ICE could get to them,” said Jessica Vaughan, director of policy studies for the D.C.-based Center for Immigration Studies, a nonprofit that advocates for lower immigration and stricter law enforcement.

Under Secure Communities, local law enforcement agencies kept suspected undocumented immigrants in custody for up to 48 additional hours after they served their sentences, or were otherwise cleared for release, to give immigration officials time to pick them up for detention. Critics argued that it led to the deportation of nonviolent criminals and helped foster a distrust between immigrant communities and local police.

Successfully challenged in courts, more than a hundred local and state governments, including Orange County, ended the program this year, ceasing their extra holds for the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

In June, California Attorney General Kamala Harris warned law enforcement agencies that they could be sued if they detained inmates at the request of federal immigration authorities.

That followed a high-profile state law called the TRUST Act, effective since Jan. 1, limiting when local police can detain someone for ICE.

But while ending the detainments, some agencies – including the sheriff’s departments in Orange and Los Angeles counties – adopted another procedure. Their local jails contact ICE before suspected unauthorized immigrants are released, so ICE agents can be on hand to detain them for deportation proceedings.

Similar notifications are a component of PEP, which continues the practice of sharing fingerprint-based biometric data between agencies.

Vaughan, whose group wanted to keep the old program, said swapping notifications for actual detainments substitutes the judgment of ICE agents with that of local political leaders, who can influence their law enforcement agencies.

“That’s a problem when immigration enforcement gets politicized,” she said.

The difference between the old program and the new one may be more significant outside of California, in states that haven’t stopped the detainments.

“The federal government in some ways is catching up with what locals have already done,” said Jessica Karp Bansal, staff attorney for the National Day Laborer Organizing Network, a Los Angeles-based group representing dozens of organizations protecting rights of day laborers.

http://www.ocregister.com/articles/e...mmunities.html