My inbox is flooded with conversations regarding the latest “revelation” about ICE policies and really color me not surprised.

A report from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Office of Inspector General (OIG) revealed the presence of quotas for identifying, arresting, and deporting the non-criminal undocumented.

You’ll remember that 287(g) which started under Bush and was expanded under Obama, essentially deputizes local police departments to act as immigration agents. From jump, this opened the door to racial profiling and violating the civil and human rights of all immigrants and of all Latinos really since the face of undocumented immigration is painted as brown and having a z at the end of your last name.

The fact that ICE is using the police to criminalize all immigrants was something using 287(g) was something that activists and “difficult” bloggers, like myself raised from the beginning (VivirLatino is one of hundreds of signers on a letter calling for an end to 287(g) sent last August) and many advocacy orgs purposely didn’t touch the issue with a 30 foot pole so as not to upset the delicate status quo or “coalition” of Comprehensive Immigration Reform work.

Back then and now, this whole public airing of what our communities have been living with, reminds me of the late 1990′s in terms of policing urban communities of color across the country. Broken windows didn’t work then, it’s not gonna work now.

Those who follow (and lived through) the use of “broken windows” in the late 1990′s should remember the arguments well. The idea was that if police targeted the “broken windows” of the communities, that is the lower level quality of life crimes, then the impact would trickle down to combat more dangerous crime. Of course this narrow, tunnel vision perspective on crime fighting was and still is misguided and failed to take into account changing drug culture in the lowering of crime rates. So in order to make it seem like police were doing a better job racially motivated street sweeps and stop and frisks were amped up.
Quotas were enacted for police leading to a range of abuses ranging from the sadly usual wrongful arrest to 41 shots (you all remember Amadou Diallo).

The Department of Homeland Security and ICE under Obama have basically just taken a page from the urban policing strategies of the late 1990′s. In handing over their immigration enforcement to local police departments, they can amp up their own arrest and deportation numbers and criminalize immigrants just trying to survive. They also create a state of fear for immigrant communities. What immigrant community needs the Jeffery Conroy‘s of the world when they have their local police departments armed with federal power and no oversight? Who needs the Minutemen when you can get Schumer and maybe a Republican to slap the “reform” sticker to a proposal calling for the undocumented to criminalize themselves as a legitimate pathway to “come out of the shadows”? Even hate group masked as fake immigration think tank, The Center for Immigration Studies, has hailed Maricopa Sheriff Arpaio for using broken window strategies and likens Arpaio to former NYC Mayor Giulianni and former NYPD head Bratton, who brought nightmares into reality for many mothers in NYC communities (I will not link to the CIS article in the post because they don’t need my traffic, I will send the link to those interested).

I’m not a policy expert and make no claim anywhere near that. I don’t know what Comprehensive Immigration Reform bill if any will ever see the light of day. But, as an observer (and participant) of history, I know that the broken windows approach to policing wasn’t protested with permits. I also know that 9-11-01 shifted the way everyone does business, activists and law enforcement alike. At the March for America I was waxing nostalgic with some friends about what action looked like “back in the day”. If law enforcement, including ICE are going back to their broad daylight attacks on communities of color (stop and frisks in NYC are rising again oh by the way) then maybe the activists need to go back to our playbooks as well.