Task force advises limiting federal immigration arrest program
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September 30, 2009 10:26 PM
Jeremy Roebuck
The Monitor

A U.S. government task force recommended Wednesday that the federal Department of Homeland Security scale back an initiative that allows local authorities to enforce the country’s immigration law.

The so-called 287(g) program — named after the section of law that created it — should be limited to identifying illegal immigrants in state prisons and county jails and exclude any efforts to track them down outside of criminal investigations, the Southwest Border Task Force said.

The proposal came as part of the group’s first report to the Homeland Security Advisory Council, which sought input in June from several border politicians, law enforcement officials, academics and business leaders.

The task force presented 18 other proposals Wednesday on issues ranging from streamlining the border crossing process to ongoing cooperation with Mexican law enforcement.

“Our goal is to get all of the Southwest border on the same playing field and draw out the realities on the border versus the rhetoric,â€