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Home Front: Politix
Federal illegal immigration strategy shifting
2012-11-16
Federal officials are scaling back a program that enlists the aid of local police and sheriffÂ’s 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 sheriffÂ’s 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 SheriffÂ’s 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 donÂ’t 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 ICE’s southern region in Atlanta.
Posted by:Au Auric

#8  in favor of a national program that uses fingerprints collected by the FBI. What if they have not been fingerprinted?
Posted by: JohnQC   2012-11-16 15:21  

#7  Call it the Bertolt Brecht Plan.
Posted by: charger   2012-11-16 11:12  

#6  Meh. Just means they'll replace the US population with a compliant one used to third-world despotism all the quicker.
Posted by: Rob Crawford   2012-11-16 09:27  

#5  Thirty-seven percent were arrested on traffic charges...

You drive a car without a license or insurance and that is a pretty serious crime. You could get into a traffic accident, wreck somebody's car, injure them or even kill them and you have no insurance or any other way to make restitution. Get the hell out of my country.
Posted by: Abu Uluque   2012-11-16 09:05  

#4  "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.

That has got to be the stupidest statements since Obama's last speech. She does know that being in the U.S. without authorization is ILLEGAL doesn't she?
Posted by: CrazyFool   2012-11-16 08:48  

#3  RFIDs implanted in the neck of all legal residents; shoot anyone who does not pass ID at checkpoints (automated into red light cameras.) What could go wrong?
Posted by: Glenmore   2012-11-16 08:32  

#2  It seems to me that those who were trained under the old system are fully capable of sharing their expertise more broadly among their peers, both locally and more widely.
Posted by: trailing wife   2012-11-16 08:21  

#1  Becuz, ya know, fingerprints + techy DNA Databases, NOT closing down Amer's dangerously porous southern border, will absolutely postively categorically undeniably ...@etc. prevent the following ...

* TOPIX > [Arutz Sheva] OP-ED: HOW IT WOULD LOOK IFF THE US WERE ATTACKED AS ISRAEL IS.

ARTIC > As HAMAS presently has the ability to fire rockets at 25% of Israeli sovereign territory in arc from Gaza, how would it look iff Hamas + Gaza-WB = Mexico's Drug Cartels? Other? = routinely fired similar LR Rockets, etc. at 25% of US sovereign territory across the Mexican-US border from SoCal to Texas???
Posted by: JosephMendiola   2012-11-16 00:28  

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