Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano (Photo: Flickr/The National Guard)

Former members of a task force on Secure Communities sent a letter this week to Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano calling on her to suspend the immigration enforcement program.

The letter also expressed their concern that an Arizona law enforcement agency that has committed a “wide range of civil rights violations” still has access to Secure Communities.

Brittney Nystrom of the National Immigration Forum and Andrea Zuniga DiBitetto of the AFL-CIO write in the letter:

As former members of the Homeland Security Advisory Council, Task Force on Secure Communities, we note with concern the multiple findings of racial profiling of Latinos and other civil rights violations by the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office released by the Department of Justice (DOJ) on December 15.

The findings of a pattern and practice of racial profiling of Latinos in Maricopa County, Arizona, demonstrate that abuse can occur while the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is actively collaborating with enforcement agencies through both the 287(g) program and the Secure Communities program and through informal collaboration between DHS and law enforcement agencies.

“My understanding is that [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] is continuing to operate Secure Communities in Maricopa County despite the findings of discriminatory policing by that sheriffs department,” Nystrom tells The Florida Independent.

Secure Communities allows local law enforcement agencies to check the fingerprints of people they detain and match them up with federal immigration and criminal databases, with the stated goal of deporting undocumented immigrant criminals. All 67 Florida jurisdictions participate in Secure Communities.

Napolitano said in October that the termination of Secure Communities “would only weaken public safety, and move the immigration enforcement system back towards the ad hoc approach where non-criminal aliens are more likely to be removed than criminals.”

Opponents of Secure Communities have repeatedly called on the Obama administration to end the fingerprint-sharing program because immigrants who have committed no crime are being detained and deported, leaving behind U.S.-born children and families that, in many cases, will struggle to make ends meet.

Nystrom says that Homeland Security officials said they were “limiting” the Maricopa sheriff’s office’s “access to Secure Communities, but that in [her] thinking and Andrea’s thinking doesn’t go far enough to prevent someone who was picked up in a biased manner from being put into the deportation machine.”

The letter adds that the Secure Communities termination should also include Alabama, “where immigration enforcement laws that have been challenged as unconstitutional by the Department of Justice are in effect.”

Sheriff Joe Arpaio (Photo: Flickr/Gage Skidmore)

Homeland Security writes:

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is troubled by the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) findings of discriminatory policing practices within the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office (MCSO). Discrimination undermines law enforcement and erodes the public trust. DHS will not be a party to such practices. Accordingly, and effective immediately, DHS is terminating MCSO’s 287(g) jail model agreement and is restricting the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office access to the Secure Communities program. DHS will utilize federal resources for the purpose of identifying and detaining those individuals who meet U.S. Immigration Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) immigration enforcement priorities. The Department will continue to enforce federal immigration laws in Maricopa County in smart, effective ways that focus our resources on criminal aliens, recent border crossers, repeat and egregious immigration law violators and employers who knowingly hire illegal labor.

A Department of Justice report released Thursday found that Arpaio, an advocate for controversial immigration enforcement and detention measures, has committed a “wide range of civil rights violations.”

The Department of Justice states that the ongoing civil rights investigation of the Arpaio’s office found “reasonable cause to believe that MCSO, under the leadership of Sheriff Joseph M. Arpaio, has engaged in a pattern or practice of misconduct that violates the Constitution and federal law.”

“We are pleased the Department of Justice report compelled the Department of Homeland Security to take steps today that should have been taken years ago,” said Chris Newman, Legal Director of the National Day Laborer Organizing Network in a written statement.

The Network adds:

As the DOJ report implies, DHS was an accomplice in the rights violations caused by Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio. DHS enabled Sheriff Arpaio to conduct his reign of terror, and expansion of the Maricopa Sheriff’s approach led to SB 1070 and to the potential Arizonification of the country. Today, the Department of Justice again acted to clean up the mess caused by failed DHS policies that enlist local police into the business of enforcing unjust immigration laws. It is time for DHS to stop contributing to the civil rights crisis described in the DOJ report and end the programs that made Arpaio’s crimes possible.”

The National Immigration Forum writes that the “Justice Department findings confirm what the American public had already suspected: Sheriff Arpaio has been more concerned with headlines than the Constitution and the law,” adding that they “also hail Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano’s prompt termination of the MCSO’s 287g agreement, which delegates authority for immigration enforcement to local officials, and restriction of the MCSO’s access to the Secure Communities program.”

Immigrant advocates across the U.S. have denounced Secure Communities, a highly controversial federal immigration enforcement program critics say contributes to racial profiling, demanding that the Obama administration terminate the program immediately.

Photo: Sheriff Joe Arpaio (Flickr/Gage Skidmore)

An Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer (Photo: ice.gov)

The Department of Homeland Security recently it will begin reviewing about 300,000 deportation proceedingsto implement prosecutorial discretion measures laid out in a June 2011 memo issued by John Morton, director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (aka ICE).

The Office of Principal Legal Advisor at ICE in charge of the review has been directed to review “incoming cases and cases pending in immigration court.” The purpose of the review, according to guidance directives also issued Thursday, “is to identify those cases that reflect a high enforcement priority for the Department of Homeland Security.”

According to The New York Times, “the accelerated triage of the court docket — about 300,000 cases — is intended to allow severely overburdened immigration judges to focus on deporting foreigners who committed serious crimes or pose national security risks, Homeland Security officials said.”

The guidance distributed to all immigration attorneys in Customs and Border Protection, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services and ICE lists terrorism, felony convictions, murder,  sexual abuse, drug trafficking, illegal entry, reentry and immigration fraud among the crimes that are removal priorities.

Cases not considered enforcement priorities include members of the armed forces, children who have been in the U.S. for more than five years or came to the U.S. before the age of 16, people over 65, domestic violence victims, and people seeking asylum.

The Times adds that “immigration agency lawyers will examine all new cases just arriving in immigration courts nationwide, with an eye to closing cases that are low-priority according to the Morton memorandum, before they advance into the court system,” while “immigrants identified as high priority will see their cases put onto an expedited calendar for judges to order their deportations, Homeland Security officials said.”

Immigrant advocates have had different reactions to the review of deportation proceedings.

The National Day Laborers Organizing Network argues that Thursday’s announcement

highlights how completely out of whack the Administration’s immigration priorities are. President Obama has chosen to deport 400,000 people a year. Moreover, its decision to turn local police into “force multipliers” through [Secure Communities] has caused immeasurable suffering: families have been destroyed, community safety has been undermined, and Latinos’ civil rights have been imperiled as we witness an entire generation of Americans in Waiting criminalized by these policies.

B. Loewe of the National Day Laborer Organizing Network told the Independent in August that the case review

may bring with it an expansion of the definition of “criminal,” because the damaging label is never actually defined. As we’ve seen in Secure Communities, those who they define as criminals are people whose only offense may be driving without a license or may actually only be immigration-related. There’s the potential for many to be condemned under the agency’s new scarlet letter, the title of “criminal.”

The National Immigration Forum, meanwhile, welcomed ”the launch of the Administration’s long-promised review designed to reduce the backlog of deportation cases and prioritize resources. In this time of great concern about our nation’s fiscal health, it makes sense to focus valuable law enforcement resources on the deportation of individuals who are genuine threats to public and national safety.”

The Federation for American Immigration Reform (aka FAIR) writes that the Department of Homeland Security is beginning “Amnesty Screenings” with the move. FAIR supports immigration enforcement measures like Arizona’s infamous S.B. 1070 and “lower immigration levels.” It has said the prosecutorial discretion measures issued by Morton “constitute nothing less than the granting of administrative amnesty to hundreds of thousands of illegal aliens.”

The event was part of the national day of action that called on the Obama administration to suspend the federal immigration enforcement program Secure Communities. The day of action was held the same day U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement announced it deported record numbers of immigrants in fiscal year 2011.

The Warren Institute at UC Berkeley School of Law on Wednesday released the report “Secure Communities By the Numbers” (.pdf), which states that “Secure Communities is creating an incentive for some local law enforcement agencies to engage in racial profiling through the targeting of Latinos for minor violations or pretextual arrests.”

Urbano Santos, president of the Brazilian Community Center in Deerfield Beach, tells The Florida Independent the main goal of the Center is to organize the Brazilian community: “We have to help them with education, information and employment.”

“We try to be a bridge to help and one thing that is common to our community is the immigration justice issue,” Santos says, adding that the Center also reaches out to immigrants from other countries.

According to Santos, many Brazilians have not applied for residency and have problems with their immigration status. He says they have seen Broward police help the government detain immigrants.

Esther Sales, a 21-year-old undocumented Florida International University student who came to the U.S at the age of 10 and is a volunteer at the Brazilian Community Center, tells the Independent that “it’s been a struggle.”

“I’ve had so many offers from top accounting firms, but I can’t accept anything, because I don’t have the legal status,” she says.

She says her family, which includes her two siblings, overstayed their visa and that several immigration lawyers have told them at this point they have no legal recourse to adjust their immigration status.

Sales pays out-of-state tuition and gets no help through government funds, which translates into a financial burden, a situation that affects many students she personally knows. Her mains focus is the DREAM Act because, “I’m graduating next semester, but then what comes after that?”

The DREAM Act would grant people who entered the U.S. illegally before the age of 16 conditional permanent resident status for a period of six years, after which they would be eligible to become legal permanent residents if they obtain at least an associate-level college degree or serve in the military for two years.

A press release issued by Presente.org and Florida Immigrant Coalition states:

Latinos, immigrants and their allies will hold a National Day of Action called “Obama, Immigration and the Latino Community” on Tuesday, October 18 in 10 cities across the nation – Atlanta, Boston, Charlotte, Dallas, Houston, Miami, Milwaukee, New York, San Francisco, and Tucson. In conjunction with Presente.org, Latino community leaders, clergy, and family members devastated by the controversial Secure Communities (SCOMM) racial profiling program and the immigrant detention policies of President Obama will participate in simultaneous screenings of PBS Frontline special, “Lost in Detention,” airing in the evening on October 18.

Journalist Maria Hinojosa says her documentary Lost in Detention is about Secure Communities, “which allows the sharing of information in terms of immigrants”:

According to The Miami Herald, “U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Director John Morton said Tuesday his agency deported nearly 400,000 individuals during the fiscal year 2011 that just ended in September.”

The Herald adds: “ICE said about 55 percent of the 396,906 individuals deported had felony or misdemeanor convictions. Officials said the number of individuals convicted of crimes was up 89 percent from 2008.”

According to immigrant advocates, a new immigration enforcement bill being considered in Congress would undermine existing immigration law by removing prosecutorial discretion and deferred action, two components that protect undocumented victims of domestic violence.

Michelle Ortiz — the supervising attorney of Lucha, a unit within the Florida Immigrant Advocacy Center — says that Rep. Lamar Smith’s Hinder the Administration Legalization Temptation Act (better known as the HALT Act) would force immigration authorities to deport victims of domestic violence who reach out for help.

Smith, R-Texas, has said the HALT Act is necessary because President Obama is seeking “backdoor amnesty” for millions of undocumented immigrants. The bill is cosponsored by Florida Republicans Vern Buchanan, Richard Nugent and C.W. Bill Young.

According to Ortiz, Lucha “represents victims of domestic violence, sexual assault and human trafficking in their immigration matters,” and focuses its work on “South Florida, Broward, Miami-Dade, Naples and Fort Myers.”

“Under the Violence Against Women Act, which has existed for 15 years, there have been specific protections for victims of domestic violence,” Ortiz says, “particularly for people who self-petition, who are victims of domestic violence at the hands of a U.S. citizen or a lawful permanent resident.”

“When their self-petition is approved, and have already proven they are a victim and married this person in good faith, the Immigration Service gives them deferred action. That is not a legal status, but a protection from deportation, and provides a means to apply for work authorization.”

By ending deferred action, the HALT Act would strip immigration authorities of their authority to protect victims. The HALT Act would also affect the prosecutorial discretion memos issued by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which, according to Ortiz, are working.

“We have an attorney who goes to the immigration detention center in Broward,” Ortiz says. “She sees victims of domestic violence all the time. If she puts together a request for release with evidence of domestic violence, she has been successful in getting them out of detention. So these discretion memos are working. … But with the HALT Act, it is impossible.”

Domestic violence victims also face the possibility of being identified by the federal government’s Secure Communities program should they call the police for help. Secure Communities is a controversial program that allows local law enforcement officers to share the fingerprints of detainees with an ICE database. The program counts the Florida Department of Law Enforcement and all of Florida’s counties (.pdf) as participants.

According to Ortiz, domestic violence cases often result in “either mandatory arrest or dual arrest,” which leads to victims being deported.

“The police show up and either they don’t understand the language of the victim, or they can’t figure out what is going on so they arrest both parties, book them and then figure out who is the victim and who is the perpetrator, and let the victim go,” Ortiz says. “But under Secure Communities, it’s too late, because they’ve been fingeprinted and likely turned over to ICE.”

Ortiz says that due to the large number of people in deportation proceedings who do not have a lawyer and do not know they have legal protections, there is no way to know how many victims of domestic violence are currently in removal proceedings.

In addition to increasing the penalties for driving without a license and restricting undocumented immigrants’ access to public benefits and employment, the bill would encourage the implementation of the Secure Communities program in Massachusetts. The MetroWest Daily News reports:

The bill would require the state Executive Office of Public Safety to report to lawmakers on actions it takes to assist with the deployment of Secure Communities, according to a summary provided by [state Sen.] Moore. It would require individuals or businesses seeking to register a vehicle to produce documentation such as a federal tax identification number, license or social security number. The bill would also strengthen penalties for people who drive without a license or knowingly allow someone else to drive their vehicle, according to the summary.

…The legislation also ensures that state-subsidized housing is reserved for legal Massachusetts residents and aims to help local building officials prevent multi-bedroom apartments from housing several families. Employment provisions of the bill include establishing penalties for employers who knowingly hire unauthorized workers and requiring companies seeking public contracts to participate in programs to verify the eligibility of their employees, according to the documents.

The bill would also establish a complaint process by which ordinary people can report employers who hire undocumented immigrants to the District Attorney’s office, with a penalty for false reports.

Matthew Denice, a resident of Milford, Mass., was killed by Nicolas Guaman, an undocumented Ecuadoran immigrant, who struck Denice’s motorcycle with his car. The death led to calls in the community for action against unauthorized immigration. A member of the Milford Board of Selectmen, William Buckley, said of unauthorized immigration: “There’s a real impact. People are dying.”

Denice’s family, together with the selectmen and other members of the Milford community, have called on Gov. Deval Patrick (D) to support Secure Communities, a program in which local police give the biometric information of people they arrest to the federal government. Police can then hold suspected undocumented immigrants until they are taken into custody by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Although some states, including Massachusetts, have tried to resist implementing Secure Communities, Patrick’s administration has recognized that they have no legal authority to do so.

Well-publicized violent or criminal incidents involving undocumented immigrants have frequently prompted immigration policy crackdowns by state or municipal lawmakers. In Hazleton, Pa., a fatal shooting committed by two undocumented immigrants lead to a stringent enforcement law which became the model for statewide immigration laws like Arizona’s S.B. 1070 and Alabama’s H.B. 56.

Efforts to regulate immigration through housing policy have had little support from federal courts, as both the Hazleton law and a similar policy in Farmer’s Branch, Texas, were blocked by the circuit appellate courts (Hazleton is currently once again on the docket of the Third Circuit after the Supreme Court asked the court to revisit the decision). State-level employment regulation has proven more successful, with the Supreme Court recently ruling that employers could be penalized for hiring undocumented immigrants by revoking their business licenses.

Cosponsors of the new Massachusetts bill include Milford’s state Rep. John Fernandes (D), as well as state Rep. George Peterson Jr. (R-Grafton). State Sen. Richard Moore (D-Uxbridge) and state Sen. Bruce Tarr (R-Gloucester) sponsored similar legislation in the state Senate.

The Miami-Dade County Commission today will consider a resolution urging the state Legislature not to pass legislation related to immigration, “while supporting comprehensive immigration reform at the federal level.”

Sponsored by Commissioner Audrey Edmonson, the resolution (.pdf) states

• “Miami-Dade County has the most diverse population in the State of Florida, and one of the most diverse populations in the U.S.”
• “65 percent of the residents of Miami-Dade County are Hispanic or Latino.”
• “Of the non-Hispanic population, 17 percent are White and 17 percent are African American or Black with a significant part being of Caribbean descent.”
• “Approximately one-half of the people living in Miami-Dade County were born in another country, with the most common countries of origin being Cuba, Nicaragua, Colombia, Haiti, Venezuela, Dominican Republic and Jamaica.”
• “Among people at least five years old living in Miami-Dade County in 2010, 71 percent spoke a language other than English at home, with 88 percent speaking Spanish and 12 percent speaking some other language.”
• “Protecting the people of Miami-Dade County from unnecessary and unwarranted requests for immigration documents is of paramount importance.”

The E-Verify logo (Pic via do.washk12.org) 

The resolution adds that during the 2011 session, the Florida Senate considered Senate Bill 2040, which “would have required immigration checks of inmates and also would have required employers to use the federal [E-Verify] system to verify [an employee's] immigration status,” while the “House’s bill, HB 7189, would have provided for immigration checks when a person is under a criminal investigation and there is reasonable suspicion that the person is an illegal immigrant.”

The Florida Legislature failed to pass both bills mentioned, which would also have made programs such as Secure Communities a permanent part of law enforcement in Florida.

Problems with Secure Communities, a federal immigration enforcement program, has already prompted elected officials from other states to opt out of the program. The program counts the Florida Department of Law Enforcement and all of Florida’s counties (.pdf) as participants.

In early August, Miami-Dade’s legislative delegation discussed immigration reform — a signal that the controversial issue will be important in Florida’s 2012 legislative session.

Melissa Crow, director of the Legal Action Center at the American Immigration Council, said in a press release, “The Board’s ruling renders the advisals practically meaningless and makes immigrants less likely to remain silent when questioned and less likely to assert their right to counsel.”

The new decision makes it harder for immigration attorneys to successfully file motions to suppress evidence acquired while violating an immigrant’s rights. Such motions are being used more often in deportation cases, which are themselves occurring at record levels.

Although people arrested for immigration violations don’t have “Miranda rights” per se, arresting immigration officers were required to inform immigrants of their right to an attorney and that anything they say can be used against them. Now, Crow told TAI, that protection is rendered less effective because officials can inform immigrants of their rights after they given incriminating testimony while under warrantless arrest.

Technically, the decision only affects arrests by federal immigration officials. However, Secure Communities, the new Immigration and Customs Enforcement program in which local law enforcement give the fingerprints of people they arrest to federal immigration officials, could reinforce the effects of the decision.

That’s because immigrants can potentially give incriminating testimony well before federal officials place them in deportation proceedings but after they have been flagged by Secure Communities.

The Justice Department has recently drawn praise from immigrant rights advocates for their lawsuits to block the Arizona and Alabama immigration laws. However, this new decision by the executive branch suggests that, as TAI has previously reported, the Obama administration’s position on immigration enforcement deviates considerably from what civil rights and immigrant rights groups would like.

Updated 10:51 AM, August 17, 2011: An earlier version of this article stated that the decision reversed a 1980 regulation, but that regulation had been changed in subsequent years. The board did not reverse a decision, but rather interpreted an amended regulation. The article has also been edited to clarify that prior to the decision, rights had to be read before questioning following an arrest without a warrant.

Secure Communities allows local law enforcement agencies to check the fingerprints of people they detain and match them up with federal immigration and criminal databases, with the stated goal of deporting criminals. #

Some state and local governments have refused to participate in the program, or tried to back out of it. #

The most recent letter from ICE director John Morton to state governors explains that “ICE has determined that [a Memoranda of Agreement] is not required to activate or operate Secure Communities for any jurisdiction. Once a state or local law enforcement agency voluntarily submits fingerprint data to the federal government no agreement with the state is legally necessary for one part of the federal government to share it with another part.” #

The National Immigration Forum says it is deeply disturbed by the announcement to terminate all Secure Communities agreements. An Immigration Forum release adds, “This unilateral decision contradicts the initially-stated intent to make this program optional for cities and states.” #

The Immigration Forum also restated its concerns (.pdf) about Secure Communities: #

1. ICE should amend the rules so that states and localities, and not the federal government, decide if Secure Communities is appropriate for them.
2. ICE must meaningfully address the erosion of public trust in law enforcement created by Secure Communities.
3. Because Secure Communities lacks the internal safeguards to prevent profiling, ICE must address bias and discriminatory practices that are feeding people into the program.

Aldiatx.com, a Spanish-language news outlet, reports today that Lupe Valdez, sheriff of Dallas County and a member of the Secure Communities task force, held a hearing Tuesday night to listen to public comments on the program. According to the site, Valdez said her officers only arrest people who deserve to go to jail: ”If you are stopped for a traffic violation, we’ll only take you to jail if you have an arrest order. That only happens when you have many infractions.” #

The federal Secure Communities program counts the Florida Department of Law Enforcement and all of Florida’s counties (.pdf) as participants. #