Immigrant Enforcement has never been more vigorous than
under the first year of the Obama Administration. For the year that
ended September 2010 Immigration and Customs Enforcement
(ICE) deported nearly 400,000 people, a record high. Last year
Congress granted the Administration’s request for an additional
$650 million to provide increased border resources, including
more border agents, more surveillance equipment and technology
improvements. One of the more controversial enforcement tools
in ICE’s arsenal, which has been in the news of late, is the Secure
Communities Program.
Established in 2008, this program requires participating
communities and states to transmit the fingerprints of any
individual booked on a criminal offense to ICE. ICE reviews these
to determine the immigration status of those booked and can
then request a detainer if they determine that an individual is not
legally in the US. Many communities have expressed concern over
participating in this program because of the risk of racial profiling,
the chilling effect it could have on their Community Policing efforts
(which rely upon the involvement of immigrant communities), and
concerns that individuals living within their communities might
face deportation merely as a result of being stopped for minor
violations. However, ICE convinced many communities to join the
program by assuring them that information obtained through the
program would primarily be used to seek out and deport serious
criminals. After all the stated goal of the program is to target
individuals who “pose a true public safety or national security
threat.”
In practice, however, nearly half of the individuals deported under
the Secure Communities Program have been harmless people
stopped for minor violations, such as traffic offenses or loitering,
or for no offense at all. As a result many communities, including
the city of Boston, are demanding explanations from ICE and are
considering withdrawing from the program.
ICE has recently issued two new memos which update, consolidate,
and clarify how and when deportation should be initiated and
provide guidelines for “prosecutorial discretion.” These memos and
the concept of “prosecutorial discretion” were immediately attacked
by conservative elements and anti-immigrant groups as a form of
amnesty. However, the policy does not grant anyone legal status,
it merely reiterates ICE’s existing enforcement priorities and gives
guidance as to how and when to apply them in the field in a variety
of setting from the moment an agent speaks to a person through
the point of a prosecutors deciding whether or not to appeal a
decision by a judge.
Everyday our nation’s law enforcement officials make decisions
about who to arrest, who to prosecute, and what sentences to seek.
Given the limited resources that ICE has at its disposal (the ability
to remove only 5% of those illegally present in the US), the fact that
it costs the government approximately $17,500 to remove or deport
an immigrant, and the stated goals of this program, prioritizing
makes sense. It should also go a long way in addressing some of the
fears of many communities, such as Boston, that this program has
been used as a dragnet for those who pose no risk to society and is
having a negative effect on their community policing efforts. While
it remains to be seen whether the adoption of this new policy will
fully address the concerns of many communities, the adoption of
these policies by ICE is certainly a move in a positive direction.
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