The Informant

Today, the Center for Constitutional Rights released new numbers coming out of the federal immigration control program, Secure Communities. I, along with about 40 other reporters nationwide, was on the press conference call and you’re bound to see about a zillion articles popping up around major news outlets today and tomorrow referencing the program. So for those of you who don’t follow vaguely-named federal programs in your spare time, here’s a short refresher on what the program is and why so many people care about it.

Secure Communities is a fingerprint sharing program between local law enforcement and federal immigration control. When a person is arrested in say, San Francisco or Oakland, and they’re booked in the county jail, local deputies take their fingerprints. Instantly, those fingerprints travel to the California Department of Justice and to the Federal Bureau of Investigations. That’s so if someone is booked on something like drunk driving, or is arrested by mistake, or the charges against them are dropped, the system can check and see if the person is wanted for any crime before the Sheriff releases him or her. Now, because of Secure Communities, these fingerprints also go to Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

The idea behind Secure Communities was outlined in a recent editorial by Assistant Secretary John Morton, the director of ICE:

“ICE is focusing on identifying aliens convicted of crimes who should not be released back into our communities.  Our highest priority is convicted criminals who pose the greatest threat to our communities—people convicted of homicide, rape, kidnapping, robbery and major drug offenses.

Since beginning the program in October 2008, ICE has deployed the fingerprint technology to more than 165 jurisdictions across 20 states.  We deploy to more places every week.  As a result, we have removed more than 33,000 aliens convicted of crimes—aliens who may have otherwise been released back onto our streets and into our neighborhoods.

As ICE expands this program nationwide, we meet regularly with local law enforcement agencies, national and local non‑governmental organizations, media and others to ensure the public understands that ICE is using this race-neutral program to identify and remove criminal aliens, thereby relieving the burden on state and local governments.”

If a person’s been convicted of a serious crime, they should be deported, ICE said. So the program went into effect October of 2008, and since then, has expanded to 544 jurisdictions in 27 states, including every county that borders Mexico.

But a lot of immigrants rights groups, as well as local leaders like San Francisco Sheriff Michael Hennessey, Police Commissioner Angela Chan, and members of the Board of Supervisors have taken issue with the program. Here are the main issues that are brought up in connection with the program:

1. There are ways for non-criminals to get swept up into the system. First, the program targets people at arrest–meaning some people come to ICE’s attention because they’ve been convicted of a serious crime; others come to ICE’s attention because they’ve been arrested on suspicion of having committed a serious crime; and yet others get caught up in the system because they were arrested for having an open container of alcohol or because they were mistaken for someone else. What today’s numbers seem to show is that the majority of those being deported nationwide under the program either have not committed a crime or were arrested for and/or convicted of a so-called “low-level” crime, like driving without a license, solicitation of prostitution, or open container.
2. The police-community relationship. Generally, local police and local county sheriff’s departments don’t deal with civil matters. That is, police don’t get involved with sexual harassment claims, medical malpractice lawsuits, or injury claims from all those people who tripped over that uncovered pothole down the street. Similarly, violations of immigration law like entering the country illegally are considered civil, not criminal violations. Furthermore, some worry that getting local police involved in policing immigration changes the relationship between police and the public–namely, the police in places like San Francisco depend on a good relationship with immigrant communities and don’t want undocumented immigrants who are victims or witnesses to crime to be afraid to talk to cops.
3. The potential for racial profiling. It’s hard to prove racial profiling; it’s also hard to disprove racial profiling. But Secure Communities, critics argue, presents a good opportunity for racial profiling to happen. First, there’s a question as to how police officers will react to this new system that puts more weight on the act of arresting a person. Will they arrest fewer people, knowing that arrests can lead to deportations? Will they arrest more people, with the same idea in mind? Will they charge those arrested with lesser or greater crimes? Second, is the fingerprint database itself. All kinds of things can trigger a “match” in the ICE database. You’ll probably come up as a match if you’re a naturalized citizen, if you’re a green card holder, if you’ve ever entered the country on a tourist visa, or if you’ve ever been deported before. What’s more interesting is what happens if a person doesn’t come up as a match in the system. A “non-match” could indicate many things. Maybe you’re a citizen, maybe you’re an undocumented immigrant who’s never come into contact with ICE before. So far, ICE has not said what happens  if, say, you’re a non-match in the system and have an obviously Latino name and/or don’t speak English and/or in some way exhibit some characteristic that might peg you as an undocumented immigrant.
4. Some places want out. San Francisco, for one, did not want to participate in the Secure Communities program, which was initially billed as a “voluntary” program. Sheriff Mike Hennessey asked ICE to opt out. According to Hennessey, they told him to ask Attorney General Jerry Brown for permission. The Attorney General said, “ask ICE.” This went back and forth for a bit and ended when the Sheriff sent a letter to Brown asking to opt out and was told that he couldn’t–that all California counties will be participating. It does seem that Washington D.C. has opted out of the program, but it’s unclear whether cities and counties have a choice.

Next up, today’s numbers. . .