My mentor Richie Perez said once that people of color are the raw material/human fodder for the machine that is the prison industrial complex. And when that machine gets clogged what do you do? You take a page from San Diego County, California and clean up with the help not of Joe the Plumber, but ICE.

San Diego County recently announced that it would soon be partnering with ICE and dedicating its energy to identifying immigrants in jail for deportation. ICE unveiled its new program – The Secure Communities Program – in March 2008. It gives jails access to ICE and FBI databases so that they can identify inmates who lack legal status or have a criminal history and then turn them over to ICE for deportation. Through this new initiative, ICE plans to eventually have a presence in every one of the 3,100 local jails throughout the U.S.

The problems with this program are many. First, the only real purpose/reason I can see a local jail wanting to do this is because it needs to make more room for more people it wants to arrest and incarcerate. Additionally, it should come as no surprise that local jails are filled with people of color picked up as part of racial profiling sweeps and bullshit quality of life crimes. And we all know how dangerous an undocumented turnstile jumper is (oh I’m just waiting for the broken windows comment now).

Plus is seems like a real easy way for ICE to claim higher number of deportees and make it seem like there are even more criminal undocumented to worry about.

Via / Hispanic Tips y Immigration Impact