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Federal illegal immigration strategy shifting
Federal officials are scaling back a program that enlists the aid of local police and sheriffs offices to identify people who are in the country illegally, in favor of a national program that uses fingerprints collected by the FBI. U.S. Immigrations Customs and Enforcement officials say the so-called 287(g) program that includes Wake County will continue at least until the end of the year. But ICE says the program is under review, and that it will no longer train local police under the program or give them the authority to question, investigate and arrest people they suspect are in the country illegally. The change moves the government away from an approach to immigration enforcement that has been popular among some law enforcement agencies but has drawn fire from civil rights groups, who say it encourages local police and sheriffs deputies to unfairly target Latinos. The Department of Homeland Security is still reviewing 57 complaints against the Wake County program, and ICE suspended its 287(g) agreement with the Alamance County Sheriffs Office after the U.S. Justice Department found deputies there were exceeding their authority by checking the immigration status of Latinos on the street. But the fingerprint system, called Secure Communities, has critics as well, who say that both programs dont serve their primary purpose. The program, started in 2008 and being expanded nationwide next year, was meant to deport serious criminals, but has instead cast a much wider net, said Sejal Zota, a former immigration specialist with the UNC-Chapel Hill School of Government and now an attorney with the National Immigration Project of the National Lawyers Guild. More than half the people who were subsequently removed nationwide in 2011 were charged with minor offenses or did not have any criminal history, Zota said. Thirty-seven percent were arrested on traffic charges. There is a question of whom this program is targeting? Secure Communities allows federal officers to detect illegal immigrants by comparing the fingerprints of those arrested by local police, which are routinely shared with the FBI, with prints in immigration databases. ICE says the system is simply a smarter way to do business. The Secure Communities screening process, coupled with federal officers, is more consistent, efficient and cost-effective in identifying and removing criminal and other priority aliens, said Vincent Picard, a spokesman with ICEs southern region in Atlanta. Posted by: Au Auric 2012-11-16 |
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