By STEWART J. LAWRENCE
It's
one of the Obama administration's most important and secretive
immigration enforcement programs. But despite growing concerns from
civil libertarians and immigration activists about the way the program's
been designed and implemented, it's caused barely a ripple in Congress
or in the establishment media. And the White House continues to
stonewall those seeking release of basic details about the program.
Known euphemistically as "Secure Communities," the program looks
and sounds innocuous, and even beneficial. Why shouldn't the nation's
jails be equipped with a federal database to help identify illegal
immigrants who've been convicted of serious felonies like rape and
murder to ensure that they're deported -- rather than released back into
civilian life after they've completed their sentence?
Because that's not what Secure Communities is actually being used
for, in fact. Rather than weed out incarcerated felons that could
menace the public order, the program’s been targeting low-level
misdemeanor offenders, including people who may be guilty of little more
than running a stop sign or driving with a broken taillight.
And because those targeted by the program are "screened" through a
special database at the time they're arrested, Secure Communities is
actually focused on criminal suspects - those merely accused of
wrongdoing - not aliens already convicted and serving time.
Even worse, according to the federal government’s own data, it
turns out that many of these people, even the low-level offenders, are
innocent. But they are getting rounded up and processed for deportation
just the same.
Secure Communities started as a pilot program in North Carolina and
Texas in October 2008, in the waning days of the Bush administration.
At present, more than 450 separate jurisdictions in at least 24 states,
epecially on the US-Mexico or US-Canada border, are working with the
Obama administration's Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to
implement the program.
That's more than six times the number of jurisdictions cooperating
with DHS to implement Section 287(g), a separate immigration enforcement
program that allows state and local police to request federal training
to identify and apprehend aliens. That program’s come under fire for
much the same reason Arizona's new immigration enforcement law has: it
diverts precious police resources away from serious crime fighting, and
critics charge it also leads to racial profiling.
But rather than abandon Section 287(g) outright, Obama last summer
agreed to scale the program back. But not so with Secure Communities.
In fact, Obama’s quietly moving to fast-track the program. Nearly
two-thirds of the cooperating jurisdictions have signed on in the past
six months alone. And by 2013, under the Obama plan, all 3,100 of the
nation's jails in all 50 states are slated to have the Secure
Communities database in place.
And who is on the current list? Arizona, of course. Last
December, Gov. Jan Brewer signed an agreement with DHS that authorized
all of the jails in the state to help remove illegal aliens brought in
for booking.
Which makes the Obama administration’s recent lawsuit against
Arizona seem hypocritical – if not downright Orwellian, in fact.
Given widespread public support for Arizona's new enforcement
crackdown, many Americans might well support Secure Communities, too.
But it would help if they knew more about the program so they could make
an informed decision.
But Obama won't release basic details about how the program
operates, or what it's accomplished to date. In late June, the Center
for Constitutional Rights and other legal groups sued Obama and the DHS
under the Freedom of Information Act demanding that they release those
details. The Justice Department has yet to respond to the their suit.
And it’s not just illegal aliens who could suffer the effects of
this program. DHS has admitted that its database has a 5% rate of
"false positives," meaning legal immigrants and even US citizens who are
wrongly identified as illegal aliens but still subject to deportation.
Right now, the numbers involved are relatively small. But a 5%
error rate for tens of thousands of criminal suspects who will
eventually be screened annually could add up to thousands of wrongly
detained persons - and millions of dollars in lawsuits.
There's also the danger that over-zealous police departments could
decide to go after illegal aliens who are congregated on street corners
looking for work, charge them with "loitering," knowing full well
they'll be identified as illegal aliens once they're are booked at a
local jail, and run through the new federal database.
Currently, many of these aliens carry false IDs and there's no way
of knowing whether they're legal or not. Eventually, the new database,
which is based on more secure identification documents, will allow such a
determination to be made.
Another point at issue is that local jurisdictions appear to have
no authority to opt out of the Secure Communities program. San
Francisco, a leading "sanctuary" city, recently tried to pass a
resolution against Secure Communities, but California’s Democratic
Attorney General Jerry Brown, who's running for Governor in a tight
election in which controversy over immigration figures prominently,
rebuffed the city.
What should DHS do? At a
minimum, it should release all operational details about Secure
Communities immediately. Continued secrecy only undermines the public
trust. DHS director Janet Napolitano should also appear before the
relevant congressional subcommittees to answer questions about the
program.
In the interim, DHS should scale back the scope of the program to
accord with its stated guidelines - targeting "criminal" aliens. One
option is to limit the database screening to persons already convicted
and incarcerated. Another more expansive option: allow criminal
suspects to be screened - but only those accused of the same major
felonies.
In the final analysis, it' a question of policy "congruence."
Obama has said that he is stepping up immigration enforcement to make it
possible to convince Congress to pass a legalization program. But
stepped up enforcement is supposed to target future illegal aliens, not
those currently living here who should qualify for legalization.
Unless illegal aliens are convicted felons - which would deny them
the right to be legalized anyway - Secure Communities shouldn't be
focused on the illegal alien population generally.
Unless Obama's planning to drop the legalization program, and
abandon comprehensive immigration reform altogether. But if he is, he
should say so. And preferably before November.
Stewart J. Lawrence is a Washington, DC-based an immigration policy specialist. He can be reached at stewartlawrence81147@gmail.com
(via Counterpunch.org)
