December 13, 2010 | 11:32 AM | By

What organizers want to know about Secure Communities

FILED UNDER: Police, Angela Chan, Immigration, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Secure Communities

Since the federal program Secure Communities started in March 2008, one of the biggest questions around the program has been whether or not it’s optional. As a refresher, Secure Communities hooks up local arrest databases to federal databases. That means, whenever someone’s booked and fingerprinted at a participating local jail, their fingerprint goes to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and a database there checks whether that person is in their system as a visa violator or as an undocumented immigrant. If ICE thinks they are, they can put a “hold” on the person, which means the jail detains them for 48 hours, giving ICE the chance to pick the person up and presumably, begin deportation proceedings.

The issue of participation is that not all jails want to turn over all this information.

In California,  Attorney General Jerry Brown signed an agreement with ICE in 2009 and counties have been trickling into the program since. Some counties, like Los Angeles, where a fifth of the (overcrowded) jail population is foreign born, have called for the program’s expansion. Others, like San Francisco and Santa Clara, want out, saying the program unfairly sweeps up those accused of minor crimes (like public urination) and sometimes crime victims, while making immigrants scared of local police. So these counties have tried to get out of the program, and were met with conflicting information about whether or not the program was optional, finally culminating in an announcement last month that no cities or counties would be let out so long as state officials approved the program.

Now, there are further questions about who’s allowed in and out. Late last month, Washington became the first state to refuse to sign an agreement to enter into Secure Communities. Washington DC, under the jurisdiction of no state, has also refused to participate. Nevertheless, ICE says that all states and localities will be participating by 2013–apparently even Washington state.

So what’s the issue? It’s a fundamental federal versus local conflict–a conflict that has played out time and again in immigration issues. The federal government–or those invoking the US Constitution–has often intervened in local governance to put an end to discriminatory laws (school segregation comes to mind). With immigration, advocates say, the movement has generally been in the opposite direction. Angela Chan, an attorney with the Asian Law Caucus says “there has been a pattern of our federal government passing openly discriminatory immigration laws and then localities trying to respond to this.”

In 1989, for instance, Chan says San Francisco and other cities reacted to President Ronald Reagan’s tough stance on asylum claims by passing “Sanctuary City” ordinances. San Francisco’s ordinance states that city and county employees (police officers, administrators, etc.) cannot use any local resources to assist in federal immigration enforcement. Exceptions include giving immigration officers information about immigrants who’ve been convicted of felonies.

Now, San Francisco officials (like Sheriff Mike Hennessey) say, the federal government is putting them in conflict with this Sanctuary City ordinance and possibly delving into territory controlled by local governments–namely, local money and resources. And late last week, these critics received a boon: a federal judge ordered ICE to turn over documents that are expected to reveal what was going on behind the scenes as ICE seemingly publicly changed their minds about whether cities and counties could opt out of the program.

So when advocates (from Center for Constitutional Rights and Cardozo Law School, those that filed the suit) pore through these expected Secure Communities documents, they’ll be looking for information that points to a legal way out of the program. And specifically, this search will likely focus on a few key questions: does ICE believe it has the legal authority to compel local communities to participate? And do they also now believe that they can compel states? And if so, on what grounds?

  • Anonymous

    With crimes like these no wonder there is a huge demand for Criminal Justice professionals get a degree from “United Forensic College”

  • Anonymous

    San Francisco and Santa Clara, want out, saying the program unfairly sweeps up those accused of minor crimes (like public urination) and sometimes crime victims, while making immigrants scared of local police.
    ========================
    Being an illegal alien is not a minor crime, and if they are caught for public urination, they are deported because they are illegal aliens. Public urination is almost always accompanied by public drunkeness, and when you see those combinations in place, that person is not really one anyone wants in their community because public urination is a public health problem, and particularly with illegal aliens, as much as a visually inappropriate activity. Good job to the police who DO, do those arrests. But they are deported because they are illegal aliens, usually involved in document fruad, and it is the law.

    “..while making immigrants scared of local police.” Cops want these guys for squealers. Informers. So does the world. But the cost of the welfare and all other funds used to maintain the illegal aliens is running about $348 billion a year. THAT is one heck of a price to pay for a squealer who should be pissing in Mexico anyway. For that price, we could enforce the law and deport the guy in complience with Federal Law.
    Ahhhh… here comes the Scantuary City idea. Scantuary Cities are local law. They are NOT Constitutional at all. Scantuary Cities were created when the Federal Government under the Clintons’ refused to fund the Border Patrol, refused to pay the cost of jailing, refused to pay the cost of deportations, refused to enforce the law. Along comes Mr. Bush, and he continues the process for his first term, and becomes VERY selective in what he will do in his second term. In any case, between those two twits, we have a multi billion dollar problem and it is a very serious shame we cannot sue Bush and Clinton into the ground.

    Soooo… now what are we going to do. Obama is NOT committed to doing interiour enforcement. The people want that, and the issue becomes what to do. We would be in cruise control using no brainer if Arizona had not come along and inserted the ability for Arizona to enforce the law in the Interior as would have been done with an Administration that DID want to protect the American People. But suddenly the States CAN enforce the law and the grand scheme which was bleched all over the American People by the dolts in Washington D.C. is gonna go another way.

    It boils down to this: the Arizona Law should not be contested, and the Scantuary Cities SHOULD BE challenged. The law says.. apprehend, detain and deport. We want the Government that is supposed to protect us to do so.. and they have not been doing so for a long, long time. Soooo.. please support arrest, detain, and deport. It will save a bundle in welfare for people using Fake I.D., and save a bundle for our local jails. Three good sites to consider when you consider.

    Comprehensive Immigration and Enforcement Reform.
    http://nafbpo.org/editorial-cier.html

    Who they are…
    Comprehensive Immigration and Enforcement Reform.
    http://nafbpo.org/editorial-cier.html

    An excellent exam of the Border Problem by the John Hopkins University.
    http://www.hstoday.us/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=9598&Itemid=345

    Why I like the law a great, great deal.
    http://one-simple-idea.com/BorderSecurity.htm

  • Anonymous

    “there has been a pattern of our federal government passing openly discriminatory immigration laws and then localities trying to respond to this.”
    ======================================
    No.. we haven’t. In the old days, there were policies in place that were not friendly to the Chinese entering this country in mass. That came when the Unions, populated by the Irish, were broken when the Railroads used the Chinese to build the first intercontenential railroad. Certainly racism was involved for some on the Chinese side and the Irish side, but the economics and politics created the old laws, and those laws are exactly why the American Middle Class was created. So when such as the quote up there is said, you need to support it. You need to support it, or you are manipulative and using propaganda.
    Wrong link in my last post. Who they are is found here.

    http://nafbpo.org

  • Rina Palta

    I have to respond to the lack of support/propaganda claim: I would say that the Chinese Exclusion Act and the Asian Exclusion Act are two pretty clear examples of federal policy designed to discriminate against specific groups of people.

  • Joelwisch2

    The Chinese Exclusion Act was a United States federal law signed by Chester A. Arthur on May 8, 1882, following revisions made in 1880

    The Asian Exclusion Act was essentially the same thing. It was extended in 1924 but the reasons could not be called racist at all. They were economic and well worth reading about in an encyclopedia.

    Ms. Palta’s assertions in this story are not correct, and in reality, if you study our history, you discover they were not correct for the motives of the time. Further.. suggesting this base economic question on the matter of illegal aliens is of the racist tone almost 150 years ago verges on the ludicrous.

  • Anonymous

    The people that ignore our legal pathway for immigrants, understand the consequences of their actions is deportation. They need not commit any additional offense. The federal govt. makes the rightful decision regarding ones immigration status. I support Secure Communities in my county, for it has improved public safety and security. No local community or state should be permitted to opt out. Any stste that opts out, should be denied all federal financial support.

  • Citizens advocate

    Angela Chan… now theres a shining example of how an Asia shemale can be a floruishing professional bigot in 2011 AD. If federal immigration laws were “openly discriminatory,” is there any reasonable person who would contend that the ACLU and their not ready for prime time sidekicks like Ms. Chan would not have initiated litigation to challenge that law on due process or equal protection grounds? Of course not.

    What Creepy Chan really objects to is are the concepts of sovereignty and majoritarian democracy. It is an essential element of both national sovereignty and self-government that the people of a nation decide who they want or do not want to admit to their territory. So it has been, without exception, as far back as written or archeological records of human society exist.