Earlier this week a report was released by the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law stating that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (I.C.E) violated their own standards and rules, as well as the U.S. Constitution when it came to raids on houses.

The raids were supposed to focus on dangerous criminals, but overwhelmingly netted Latinos with civil immigration violations who happened to be present, the study said. Raiders mistakenly held legal residents and citizens by force in their own homes while agents rummaged through drawers seeking incriminating documents, the report said.

What is most disturbing isn’t so much what has already been done by I.C.E, which has been well documented, even if ignored by the mainstream media and political parties, but rather how the communities are being asked to trust I.C.E in enforcing new, expanded 287(g) programs because they will go after the “bad” immigrants like children.

The report said a similar “cowboy mentality” emerged in many other raids. In Paterson, N.J., last year, legal residents from Guatemala and their 9-year-old son, a United States citizen, were threatened with guns by immigration agents who had entered their home while the boy’s mother was in the shower.

The reality is that to I.C.E, the lives of migrant communities and those racialized as such (Latinos), are games to beat not lives to protect or serve as the often referred to mandate states.

In an e-mail message obtained under a Freedom of Information request, a federal immigration agent in Connecticut invited a state trooper to join a scheduled set of raids in New Haven, writing: “We have 18 addresses — so it should be a fun time! Let me know if you guys can play!”

Policy reform advocates can claim that enforcement measures target the “worst” , but all signs point to reform that will further criminalize who communities and force them to their knees in fear to prove their worth.

Timely enough DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano is scheduled to appear on Real Time with Bill Maher later today. People are urged to Submit questions on Bill Maher’s site and email the producer with pointed questions: EMAIL: Vanessa.gedney@realtimehbo.com

Here are some sample questions/comments:

1) Tell Napolitano that cosmetic changes to a fundamentally flawed 287
(g) program will do nothing to alleviate the severe civil rights
abuses and the problems of deputizing local police to enforce federal
immigration law.

2) Why have you expanded the 287(g) program when it is well
documented that it leads to public safety concerns, racial profiling,
and civil rights abuses?

3) Recently your boss President Obama denounced racial profiling. Yet
why do you continue to contract with pronounced racist sheriffs, like
Sheriff Joe Arpaio, who use the program to persecute people of color?

Via / The New York Times