Courtesy of ICE
Immigration and Customs Enforcement
Janet Napolitano, the Secretary of Homeland Security, has come out and confirmed what had previously been rumored. The Washington Independent reports that Napolitano, in a press conference in DC last week, said the agency doesn’t “consider Secure Communities an opt in/opt out program.”
Secure Communities, as a refresher, is a federal program that’s been growing for the past couple of years. Basically, in any state that chooses to participate, when a person is booked at a local jail, their fingerprints are shared with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). ICE can then check those fingerprints against their database to try to determine if the person is an undocumented immigrant. If ICE thinks the person is subject to deportation, they can choose to place a hold on that person–which means the jail will keep that person for 48 hours, giving ICE the opportunity to pick them up and begin deportation proceedings. ICE says it’s a great way to get to undocumented immigrants who’re committing crimes in the US. Critics say it’s a sneaky way of using local police to round up undocumented immigrants. And some localities, including San Francisco and Santa Clara counties, want out. (Officials in other counties, like LA–where an estimated fifth of the jail population is undocumented immigrants–are thrilled with the program.)
