Alliance of White Anti-Racists Everywhere – Los Angeles
Enforcement
More States Introduce Costly Immigration Enforcement Bills in 2012
04 days ago
Despite the devastating consequences of state immigration laws in Alabamaand Arizona, legislators in other states have introduced similar enforcement bills this year. Legislators in Mississippi, Missouri, Tennessee and Virginia introduced an array of costly immigration enforcement bills in their 2012 legislative sessions—some which are modeled on Arizona’s SB 1070. While study after study continues to document how these extreme state laws are costing state economies, disrupting entire industries and driving communities further underground, state legislators clearly aren’t getting the message.
Last month, legislators in Mississippi introduced a slew of anti-immigrant bills. State Senator Joey Fillingane, for example, introduced SB 2090, a bill which requires police to check the immigration status of anyone they reasonably suspect is undocumented, makes it a crime to fail to carry proper immigration documents and a crime to harbor or transport an undocumented immigrant, and a misdemeanor for an undocumented immigrant to apply for or solicit work. Both the Mississippi House and Senate passed different versions of this bill, but are expected to hammer out one bill to send to Governor Haley Barbour’s desk for a signature soon.
In Missouri, state Senator Will Kraus recently introduced SB 590, a bill which requires police to determine the immigration status of individuals they reasonably suspect are unauthorized and makes it a crime not to carry immigration documents. Missouri’s bill, like Alabama, however takes the law a step further by requiring schools to verify the immigration status of enrolling students and their parents. Remember that the U.S. Department of Justice blocked a similar provision in Alabama’s immigration law, HB 56, last October. Missouri’s legislature passed the bill out of committee last week—a bill likely to cost Missouri millions.
The House Judiciary Committee in Tennessee advanced an immigration bill this month, HB 2191, a bill which makes it a felony for anyone in the state to knowingly conceal, harbor or transport an undocumented immigrant. Tennessee’s copycat bill, HB 1380—which requires police to question the immigration status of those they suspect of being undocumented—was put on hold this month due to budgetary concerns, despite Governor Bill Haslam’s public support of the bill days earlier. HB 1380 was also shelved last year due to $3 million price tag, but the bill’s sponsor, Rep. Joe Carr, doesn’t seem like he’s giving up.
“Putting it behind the budget doesn’t kill it. It basically parks it,” Carr said. “We are prioritizing the state’s stance on illegal immigration based on the financial resources we have. We’ve got a very targeted approach to tackle illegal immigration here in the state.”
In Virginia, where control of the Governorship, House of Delegates and Senate recently changed hands to those with an enforcement heavy agenda, legislators recently introduced two Arizona copycat bills—SB 460 and its companion bill HB 1060—which allow police to determine the immigration status of those they suspect are in the country without documentation. Although SB 460 failed this week after a split vote in the Senate’s Courts of Justice Committee, it’s companion bill, HB 1060, was recently assigned to Virginia’s House Courts of Justice Sub-Committee.
And that’s only some of the immigration legislation moving through state legislatures. Other states have introduced other enforcement bills this year, each likely to hurt local businesses, families and state coffers.
Just this week, a report out of the University of Alabama estimated that Alabama stands to lose $11 billion in GDP and nearly $265 million in state income and sales tax due to their extreme immigration enforcement law, HB 56. Utah’s copycat law HB 497 (temporarily blocked last year) has cost the state $85,000 to defend, according to government reports. Arizona lost $490 million in tourism revenue last year, $86 million in lost wages, 2,800 lost jobs and more than $1 million in legal fees in defending SB 1070.
As states continue to move forward on these and other immigration enforcement bills, one wonders how much larger the writing on the wall has to be before state legislators realize these laws are costing taxpayers. Yes we need solutions to our immigration problems, but creating a complicated and costly patchwork of state laws isn’t bringing us any closer to that solution.
Photo by Africa Studio.
Alabama’s Extreme Immigration Law Could Cost State Billions, Report Finds
05 days ago
Implementing Alabama’s extreme immigration law (HB 56) would be incredibly expensive. That is the bottom line of a new report by University of Alabama economist Samuel Addy entitled A Cost-Benefit Analysis of the New Alabama Immigration Law. According to the report, the law could cost Alabama up to $11 billion in GDP and nearly $265 million in state income and sales tax. The loss includes 1) implementation, enforcement, and litigation expenditures; 2) increased costs and inconveniences for citizens and legal residents and businesses; 3) reduced economic development opportunities because it creates a poor business climate; and 4) the economic impact of reduced aggregate demand due to some unauthorized immigrants leaving and therefore not earning and spending income in the state.
Addy creates an estimate of the costs of HB 56 by using a model that assumes that unauthorized workers vacate jobs in agriculture, construction, accommodation, and food service and that between 40,000 and 80,000 workers earning between $15,000 and $35,000 leave the state. Different estimates are provided for losses of 40,000; 60,000; and 80,000 workers. He concludes that the law would result in:
- A reduction of 70,000 to 140,000 jobs;
- A reduction of $2.3-$10.8 billion in Alabama’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) or 1.3-6.2 percent of the stat’s 2010 GDP;
- A reduction of between $56.7 and $264.5 million in state income and sales tax collections;
- A reduction of $20 to $93.1 million in local sales tax collections.
Although HB56’s proponents often claim the bill will bring potential benefits to the state, Addy does not find significant state savings from decreased benefits for unauthorized immigrants. He concludes that unauthorized immigrants pay taxes and are not a drain on the economy. Furthermore, he does not see increased public safety as a likely outcome because unauthorized immigrants are not responsible for disproportionately high crime rates.
Addy also responds to arguments that the new immigration law is responsible for decreased unemployment in the state. Contrary to what proponents of the law are claiming, it does not appear that legal residents and citizens are filling jobs previously held by unauthorized immigrants. Also, in the four sectors that most often employ unauthorized workers (agriculture, construction, lodging and eating establishments), unemployment is not falling.
The report concludes that the costs of the new law are large and certain, while any potential benefits are unclear. “From an economist’s perspective, the question Alabama and its legislature have to ponder is this: Are the benefits of the new immigration law worth the costs.” Based on the work of Addy and others, the answer has to be a resounding “no.”
Photo by Willamor Media.
New Report Analyzes Fatal Flaws of U.S. Border-Enforcement Strategy
06 days ago
The federal government’s current approach to border security is dangerously misguided. Border-enforcement resources are directed at what gets smuggled across the border—people, drugs, guns, money—rather than who is doing the smuggling; namely, the transnational criminal organizations based in Mexico which are commonly referred to as the “cartels.” If the U.S. government wants to get serious about enhancing border security, it will begin to systematically dismantle the cartels rather than just seizing the unauthorized immigrants and the contraband they smuggle and arresting a few low-level cartel operatives in the process.
This is the central message of a new report by former Arizona Attorney General Terry Goddard, entitled How to Fix a Broken Border: Disrupting Smuggling at Its Source. The report starts off by noting that when it comes to border security, “the prevailing assumption is that all we need to stop illegal crossings of drugs, people, cash, and guns are more Border Patrol agents, more National Guard troops, and more surveillance and sensors to cover the hundreds of rugged miles between lawful ports of entry.” Indeed, this has been the rationale for building 650 miles of border fencing along the U.S.-Mexico border, and for the massive expansion of the Border Patrol since the early 1990s. The Border Patrol now numbers 21,000 agents and has a high-tech arsenal that includes unmanned aerial drones.
Yet, in spite of all the fencing, agents, and technology, cross-border smuggling continues unabated. The reason for this is twofold. First, the cartels that do the smuggling are, as Goddard puts it, “superbly organized, technologically adept, and very well funded.” When it comes to fencing in particular, they “have the capacity to go over, under, around, and even through virtually any physical barrier.” The U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) reports that “during fiscal year 2010, there were 4,037 documented and repaired breaches” of border fencing.
Second, the U.S. government is focused on seizing different kinds of contraband—and assigns different kinds to different government agencies: Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) gets unauthorized immigrants, the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) gets illegal drugs, and Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (ATF) gets illegal guns. Missing from this division of labor is a coordinated assault on the cartels that do the smuggling. This is a losing proposition. As Goddard emphasizes:
Going after the contraband product or smuggled people, as this country has been doing for years, is destined to be an endless chase. The cartels will just regroup and continue operations, learning from their mistakes. If we are serious about stopping the threat on the border, we have to dismantle the criminal organizations that carry the contraband and take away the tools that make them so effective.
What is needed, says Goddard, is a border-defense strategy that is “intelligence driven and multi-level.” It must target both the cartel leadership and the many subcontractors who work for them. And it must target cartel organization from every possible angle:
Whatever makes the cartel organizations strong must be attacked. Their communication systems must be cracked, jammed, and shut down. Their leaders must be identified, arrested, and incarcerated. Most important, the illegal flow of funds across the border into cartel pockets must be disrupted, interrupted, and stopped.
Goddard is incredulous that “this country has hardly lifted a finger to stop over $40 billion a year in cartel funds pouring across the border.” He calls for the Department of the Treasury to become “a full participant in the effort to stop the cartels by cutting off the illegal transfer of funds” that occurs through banks, wire-transfer companies, import-export businesses, and businesses that issue “stored value instruments.” As he points out, the “physical border is irrelevant to the flow of money; it is the virtual border in cyberspace and currency exchanges that must be defended.”
The current border-enforcement strategy is designed to fail. Goddard writes that “pouring even more money and manpower into enforcement on the border will have little impact as long as the criminal organizations remain intact.” He concludes that “only when the smuggling organizations are dismembered will border defense efforts be equal to the threat. Only then can it truthfully be said that the border is ‘secure.’”
Photo by ICE.gov.
Nativist Group Twists Facts on Effectiveness of Arizona’s Immigration Law
01 week ago
The Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) has outdone itself when it comes to shoddy research. In a recently released report on “demographic changes” in Arizona, FAIR utilizes an almost random assortment of statistics to make its case that the state’s unauthorized immigrants are fleeing in droves thanks to get-tough immigration policies. The report occasionally pays lip service to the impact on unauthorized immigration of the 2008-2009 recession, as well as persistently high unemployment rates that continue to this day. Yet FAIR concludes, without evidence, that state-level immigration enforcement has been the single most important factor causing the decline of the unauthorized population. In reality, this conclusion is not supported by the data which FAIR presents.
FAIR’s report is painfully self-contradictory. It opens with the bold statement that the “efforts of Arizona policymakers to deter the settlement of illegal aliens in the state and to encourage those already in the state to leave have made major advances in their objective.” To bolster this statement, the report offers a bountiful supply of numbers on declines over the past few years in the size of the state’s foreign-born population, foreign-born Latin American population, and unauthorized immigrant population—not to mention reductions in the poverty rate, birth rate, and crime rate. Strangely enough, some of these statistics—such as those on the drop in crime—document trends which began before Arizona had enacted any harsh immigration laws.
The report does mention, offhandedly, that punitive state immigration policies may not account for all of these demographic trends given the presence of other factors, such as “the effects of the recession, loss of jobs and growing unemployment.” Yet this acknowledgment of reality is immediately followed by the muddled argument that “the confluence of all of these factors constituted a strong message that Arizona was no longer a desirable destination for illegal aliens and that already settled illegal aliens faced increased exposure to identification and deportation.” At the very end, the report is back to making the sensational and unsubstantiated claim that the state’s demographic changes “resulted from local law enforcement activities as well as legislative changes designed to make Arizona less accommodating for aliens seeking illegal work in the state.”
While FAIR is certain that get-tough laws in Arizona have provoked an exodus of unauthorized immigrants, other observers with a less fanciful attitude towards data sound a note of caution. For instance, Juan Pedroza of the Urban Institute has pointed out that “it’s tough to tell whether (and how many) immigrants have left a community if you are looking right after a state passes a law. It can take years of evidence to test claims of a mass exodus.” Moreover, “growing evidence suggests that most immigrants (especially families with school-age children) are here to stay, except perhaps where local economies are particularly weak.”
In a related vein, a report released last year by the Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC) evaluated the impact of the 2007 Legal Arizona Workers Act (LAWA), which made it mandatory for the state’s employers to use the federal E-Verify employment-authorization system. The report found that, while the law did motivate some unauthorized immigrants to leave the state, it also pushed many of those who remained “into less formal work arrangements.” As a result, “policymakers must weigh the sought-after drop in unauthorized employment against the costs associated with shifting workers into informal employment.” In other words, reality is more complicated than FAIR’s misinterpretation of demographic statistics would suggest.
FAIR’s numerical screed against unauthorized immigrants in Arizona does not rise to the level of serious research. Too many variables go unaccounted for, too many assumptions are made, and too many conclusions are predetermined. State-level immigration enforcement is one among many factors that influence the decision of an unauthorized individual or family in Arizona as to whether they should stay or leave. Untangling those factors involves complicated research of a kind that FAIR cannot provide.
Photo by Tania Zbrodko.
Romney Uses Restrictionist Code Words to Describe Immigration Policy
01 week ago
GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney stole a page from the restrictionists’ playbook this week when he promoted the idea of “self-deportation” during a presidential debate. “If people don’t get work here,” Romney stated, “they’re going to self-deport to a place where they can get work.” Rather than initiate a constructive solution to our nation’s immigration problems, Romney is jumping in bed with immigration restrictionist groups who support policies that tear American families and communities apart, devastate local economies, and place unnecessary burdens on U.S. citizens and lawful immigrants.
Romney’s use of the term “self-deportation” is not at all surprising given his recent collaboration with Kris Kobach, the current Secretary of State of Kansas who continues to serve as chief legal counsel to the Immigration Reform Law Institute (IRLI), an arm of the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR).
Kobach, the self-professed author of several state and local immigration-control bills, advised Romney on immigration during his 2008 presidential bid and has long-promoted the strategy of “attrition through enforcement”— the immigration-control strategy to drive away the unauthorized population by making their lives so miserable that they will choose to “deport themselves” rather than remain in the U.S.
“Attrition through enforcement” laws—like Arizona’s SB1070 and Alabama’s HB56—were explicitly designed to interfere with the everyday activities of immigrants and go far beyond denying unauthorized immigrants work. These laws deny access to housing, school, work, and even water and electricity to anyone who can’t prove legal status. The laws’ supporters have made it clear that making people miserable and encouraging them to leave the state is the intended consequence of their policies.
It’s troubling that a serious Presidential candidate would adopt the code words of extremist immigration control organizations and propose that making people’s lives miserable so that they’ll leave is an acceptable policy goal. By using the term “self-deportation,” Romney is making it clear that he is on board with restrictionists groups’ strategy to force all unauthorized immigrants to leave the U.S., regardless of the time they have spent here, U.S. citizen family members, and their years of tax contributions.
Doesn’t this country deserves to hear more detailed and thoughtful approaches from politicians and policy makers—approaches that offer a way forward rather than divisive and punitive so-call “solutions” to unauthorized immigration?
Photo by Gage Skidmore.
New Report Draws Connections Between Anti-Immigrant and Tea Party Movements
01 week ago
The lines between the anti-immigrant movement and the Tea Party movement are blurred. That is the most important finding of a new report from the Institute for Research and Education on Human Rights (IREHR), entitled Beyond FAIR: The Decline of the Established Anti-Immigrant Organizations and the Rise of Tea Party Nativism. As its title suggests, the report finds that the revenue and membership of traditional anti-immigrant groups have declined in recent years, at the same time some of the Tea Parties have become hot beds of anti-immigrant activism. The report, however, overstates its case in concluding that “to a significant extent, the Tea Parties have usurped the Nativist Establishment and in the process swallowed up many of its activists.” This conclusion discounts the large amount of money and political power that some of the traditional anti-immigrant groups still possess. After all, it is the anti-immigrant groups and not the Tea Parties that have been moving anti-immigrant legislation through state legislatures and town councils from Arizona to Alabama over the past few years.
Nevertheless, the report thoroughly documents a trend which has also been noted by other human rights and immigrant rights advocates. As the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPCL) observed last spring, the Tea Party movement “has become home to many nativist extremists…The lines between the movements have become increasingly blurred, with leaders making official appearances at each other’s events.” This cross-pollination has been most apparent in the case of the Minutemen. For example, according to the IREHR report, leaders of the Minuteman Project went on to run a Tea Party faction.
Aside from the Minutemen, the report defines the “nativist establishment” as all of the “local and national anti-immigrant organizations that were established prior to the presidency of Barack Obama.” This includes the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), Americans for Immigration Control (AIC), NumbersUSA, the Center for Immigration Studies (CIS), Americans for Legal Immigration Political Action Committee (ALIPAC), California Coalition for Immigration Reform (CCIR), Californians for Population Stabilization, and the Federal Immigration Reform and Enforcement (FIRE) Coalition, as well as various local anti-immigrant groups.
Based on federal tax filings and other sources of data, the report concludes that there has been “a significant decline in support for the Nativist Establishment, with the numbers of donors/members, organizational financial support, and the number of local anti-immigrant groups all decreasing since a peak in 2007-2008.” However, one must keep in mind that 2007-2008 was a period of intense political activity surrounding the introduction of immigration reform legislation in Congress. Higher levels of involvement and support are to be expected at such a time. Moreover, despite the decline since 2007-2008, groups such as FAIR still have many millions of dollars per year in funding, not to mention the ear of highly placed elected leaders in Congress and in statehouses around the country. In contrast, the Tea Parties have far less money at their disposal and have only a marginal influence on the anti-immigrant legislative agenda.
Lack of political power notwithstanding, the report finds that there has been “both an increase in anti-immigrant activism by national and local Tea Party groups, as well as a measurable number of anti-immigrant leaders who have joined the Tea Parties and consequently accelerated the rate of anti-immigrant activism by those Tea Parties.” While some political observers have proclaimed the Tea Parties to be in a state of decline and disarray, the authors of the report disagree. They write that “rumors of the death of the Tea Party…are greatly exaggerated. The core of the Tea Party movement has continued to expand in size during 2010 and 2011. And it has continued to expand its reach into the anti-immigrant universe.” As the report notes, the Tea Parties have always been fertile ground for anti-immigrant activism because they promoted “a brand of nationalism that defined immigrants, people of color, poor people, liberals, trade union members, etc. as wholly un-American parasites.”
The authors of the report conclude that:
The newly configured anti-immigrant movement described in this report has developed a new activist constituency, the Tea Parties, even while it has lost some of its established funding sources and membership. Human rights and immigrant advocates now face a civic opposition which has a larger constituency, and an opposition which is harder to delineate and thus more difficult to oppose.
In other words, pro-immigrant advocates who have grown accustomed to tracking traditional anti-immigrant organizations should also be keeping a close eye on the Tea Parties. However, advocates would be wise to keep in mind that the traditional anti-immigrant groups are far from dead. It is these groups, not the Tea Parties, which have the greatest sway in Congress and state legislatures, as well as the biggest bank accounts.
Photo by katerkate.
Holding the Obama Administration to Its Word on Prosecutorial Discretion
02 weeks ago
Signs that ICE is invested in the “Morton Memo” and subsequent guidance on prosecutorial discretion are beginning to show up at both ends of the legal spectrum. At one end, the New York Times reported yesterday that approximately one in six cases reviewed in a pilot program at the Denver immigration court may be indefinitely suspended. At the other end, a government attorney invoked ICE’s prosecutorial discretion policy during an argument this week before the Supreme Court. While both instances offer encouraging signs, they also demonstrate that the strength of the policy depends not on what’s been said in the past, but on how it will be implemented in the future.
In yesterday’s New York Times story, Corina Almeida, the senior ICE prosecutor in Denver, cogently explained why taking low-priority cases off immigration judges’ dockets provides systemic advantages for the system as a whole:
These cases free up others to move to the front of the line: the egregious offenders, those who thumb their noses at the system or commit fraud … If the only thing they did is enter illegally, they have established ties, they have U.S. citizen children, they are productive members of society, they have no criminal records, it makes prosecutors feel good when you know you can do something.
Meanwhile, back in Washington, the Supreme Court considered the cases of two of lawful permanent residents (LPRs) who entered the country as children but were placed in removal proceedings following subsequent criminal convictions. Both asked immigration judges to cancel their deportation orders, but each was found ineligible for such relief under federal immigration law—which requires applicants to be an LPR for at least five years and to have lived in the United States for at least seven years. To meet the eligibility requirements, the children argued that they should receive credit for time their parents spent in the United States—or in legal terms, that their parent’s status or residence be “imputed” to them for purposes of the five- and seven-year requirements.
Midway through the argument, Justice Sonia Sotomayor asked the government’s attorney, Leondra Kruger, why “imputation” should be forbidden if the purpose of the law was to promote family unity and give LPRs with extensive histories in the United States a second chance. Kruger’s initial response was, in effect, that the law is the law, regardless of the humanitarian consequences that may result. But perhaps sensing some Justices’ discomfort with her response, Kruger followed up by saying:
[I]mmigration officials have the discretion not to bring removal proceedings in the first place, to terminate removal proceedings once they have begun, to defer action on the execution of a removal order. And current Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) guidance makes clear that a minor receives particular consideration within the totality of the circumstances in determining whether or not prosecutorial discretion is something that should be exercised.
In other words, Kruger told the Court that it should not matter whether LPRs who entered the United States as children are unable to seek cancellation, because in sympathetic cases ICE can decline to seek deportation in the first place.
Of course, while the government’s assertion may be legally correct, it rests on the assumption that ICE will actually exercise prosecutorial discretion in a meaningful manner. While the initial report from the Denver pilot program is encouraging, the real question is how the prosecutorial discretion policy will be implemented on a national basis. As this week’s events demonstrate, the government cannot have it both ways. If it wants to trumpet prosecutorial discretion at the Supreme Court, it cannot fail to implement the policy in the field.
Photo by Dmitriy Shironosov.
Border Patrol to Roll Out New “Get Tough” Policy on Unauthorized Immigrants
02 weeks ago
This month, the U.S. Border Patrol is set to end the practice of sending unauthorized Mexican immigrants back to Mexico without any sort of punishment. As reported by the Associated Press (AP), the Border Patrol believes it now has sufficient resources and personnel “to begin imposing more serious consequences on almost everyone it catches from Texas to San Diego.” This new policy, however, is as misguided as it is ambitious. While protecting our borders is certainly important, the Border Patrol will waste even more resources than it already does on criminalizing unauthorized immigration rather than targeting the dangerous cartels that smuggle unauthorized immigrants into the country. Furthermore, the Border Patrol’s new policy threatens to inundate federal courts and prisons with even more non-violent immigration offenders.
The crux of the Border Patrol’s new policy is a “Consequence Delivery System” which assigns apprehended immigrants to one of seven categories, ranging from first-time border-crossers to individuals with criminal records. Children and the ill will still be returned to their home countries without punitive action, but everyone else will be subject to some sort of penalty. As the AP reports, the consequences “can be severe for detained migrants and expensive to American taxpayers, including felony prosecution or being taken to an unfamiliar border city hundreds of miles away to be sent back to Mexico.” This strategy was implemented in the Tucson Sector’s Central Corridor starting on September 5, 2009. The new policy will expand it to the entire border.
As the AP story notes, the success of this policy hinges upon other federal agencies: “Federal prosecutors must agree to take [the] cases. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement must have enough beds in its detention facilities.” However, federal courts are already overloaded with immigration offenders. The story points out that the U.S. attorney’s office in San Diego has cited limited resources and lack of jail space as the reason behind its decision not to “participate in a widely used Border Patrol program that prosecutes even first-time offenders with misdemeanors punishable by up to six months in custody.” And this is before the new policy is even implemented.
In addition to wasting scarce resources, the Border Patrol’s new policy misses the mark from a border-security standpoint by focusing on all border crossers, the vast majority of whom are not a danger to anyone. As former Arizona Attorney General Terry Goddard recently wrote, the greatest security risk stems not from border crossers themselves, but from “the criminal organizations that make their crossing possible.” Any border-defense strategy that hopes to succeed must target the cartels that smuggle people and drugs into the United States, and guns and money out of the country. Goddard argues that “the arrest and deportation of those who make it across simply gives the cartels more customers. Heightened border security means the cartels charge more for the trip.”
Moreover, the Border Patrol’s focus on unauthorized immigration in between ports of entry ignores the fact that most smuggling is now occurring at the ports of entry. Goddard writes that “most of the criminal activity has shifted to the border crossings, not the places in between.” Similarly, the Texas Border Coalition argued last month that “the legal border crossings on the U.S. southwestern border have become America’s weakest border security link.” The new Border Patrol policy does nothing to strengthen that link.
The foolishness of the Border Patrol’s new policy was captured well by Laura Duffy, the U.S. attorney in San Diego. She told the AP:
It has not been the practice (in California) to target and prosecute economic migrants who have no criminal histories, who are coming in to the United States to work or to be with their families. We do target the individuals who are smuggling those individuals.
Border security will not be enhanced, and immigrant smuggling will not be stopped, by cracking down on greater numbers of unauthorized immigrants. It is the cartels that are the greatest threat, and the cartels should be the target of our border-enforcement strategy.
Photo by 3hWIT.
ICE Releases Memo Outlining Justification for Making Secure Communities Mandatory
03 weeks ago
An October 2010 ICE memo from ICE Deputy Legal Advisor Riah Ramlogan to ICE Assistant Deputy Director Beth Gibson has finally been made public after a protracted legal battle. The nine page memo, obtained through Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) litigation, presents ICE’s legal arguments for making the Secure Communities Program mandatory for all jurisdictions in 2013. This memo overrides and contradicts an earlier ICE memo that argued that S-Comm was not mandatory.
This is the latest chapter in a lengthy debate over whether Secure Communities is mandatory or voluntary. Initially ICE claimed that the program—which runs the fingerprints of individuals booked in local jails through federal databases—was voluntary. However, when states attempted to opt out of the program, they were told that they could not. In August 2011, ICE terminated its Memoranda of Agreement (MOAs) with the states, stating that the MOAs were not necessary and that ICE would continue to expand the program unilaterally. Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano also clarified that all jurisdictions would be required to participate in Secure Communities by 2013.
For years, immigrant advocates have asked ICE on what legal basis they base making Secure Communities mandatory. The “mandatory memo” now points to three statutes that give the Attorney General the authority to collect and exchange criminal information, establish a cooperative framework between the states and federal government to exchange criminal information, and make the DHS and FBI databases interoperable. The memo also recalls a FY2008 bill that appropriated $200 million for ICE to “improve and modernize efforts to identify aliens convicted of a crime, sentenced to imprisonment, and who may be deportable, and remove them from the U.S. once they are judged deportable…”
None of these statutes, however, mention Secure Communities or create a mandatory program. As UncoverTheTruth.org points out, “the statutes predate Secure Communities by between six and sixty years” making this a “post-hoc justification for a policy” ICE is eager to implement.
The earlier memo voiced concerns that states may raise Tenth Amendment arguments and that a court may find that ICE cannot compel local law enforcement agencies to participate in Secure Communities. The new memo reaches the opposite conclusion, finding that “compelling participation in Secure Communities in 2013 does not raise constitutional concerns.”
It is obvious that ICE has put much time and energy into finding a legal justification for proceeding with their plans to implement Secure Communities in all jurisdictions, regardless of the desires of local jurisdictions. This justification completely ignores the many concerns about the program, including the concerns of the DHS-appointed Secure Communities Task Force, which have still not been addressed. The ultimate question is not whether ICE can make the program mandatory, but should it be mandatory.
Secure Communities has resulted in the deportation of thousands of immigrants with minor criminal records or no criminal records at all; it has jeopardized public safety by eroding community trust in the police; it has resulted in civil rights violations. Expansion of Secure Communities must be seriously re-considered.
Photo by miss mass.
ICE, Local Governments Make Important Changes to Immigration Detainer Policies
03 weeks ago
Despite the ongoing controversy surrounding ICE’s Secure Communities program, there have been some recent positive developments on the issue of immigration detainers—a tool used by ICE and other DHS officials to identify potentially deportable individuals who are housed in jails or prisons nationwide. Local governments in New York, Illinois, California and now Washington D.C. have taken steps to limit their compliance with ICE detainers. Additionally, ICE has recently issued a new detainer form which provides more clarity to local law enforcement agencies.
Due to the expansion of the Secure Communities program, the use of immigration detainers has increased dramatically over the past several years. Detainers are official requests from ICE to local law enforcement agencies that ask them to notify ICE before releasing an individual from custody. Once an individual is identified through the Secure Communities program, ICE may issue a detainer, temporarily detaining an individual so that ICE has the option to take custody.
Immigrant advocates, however, have documented many problems with the use of detainers and numerous lawsuits have been brought forth on behalf of individuals illegally held for long periods of time under detainers. Some cities have been forced to pay thousands of dollars in damages to U.S. citizens illegally held under detainers, and individuals held up to 3 months—far more than the statutory maximum of 48 hours.
Over the last year, New York City; Cook County, IL; and San Francisco, Sonoma, and Santa Clara Counties, CA have announced they will limit their compliance with detainers by proscribing conditions that must be met in order for detainers to be honored. Most recently, city council members in Washington, D.C. introduced Bill 19-585 which would limit non-criminal hold periods to 24 hours, require federal reimbursement for the District’s costs, and only permit the detainment of individuals who have been convicted of dangerous and violent crimes. A January 6 hearing on the bill brought out dozens of city residents and activists in support of the bill.
Additionally, in response to complaints about the lack of clarity around detainers, ICE issued a new detainer form (Form I-237) last month which clarifies that:
- Detainers are a request and are not mandatory.
- Emphasizes that the LEA cannot hold the person for longer than the 48 hour maximum and that the detainer should not impact or prejudice the individual’s conditions of detention.
- Allows ICE to make the detainer dependant on the individual’s conviction rather than an arrest. ICE also requires that individuals receive notice of a detainer issued against them.
- Provides instructions for individuals who have a civil rights complaint regarding the issuance of the detainer.
ICE also announced a new 24/7 toll-free hotline – 855-448-6903 – that individuals being held under a detainer can call if they believe they are U.S. citizens or victims of a crime.
While these changes do not resolve all of the problems regarding immigration detainer policies, they are a welcomed change to lack of clarity that has clouded the issue for too long.
Photo by Lou Oates.