While D.C. is focused on the DREAM, in NY today, eyes shift to a different but equally important immigration matter : the criminalization of migrants and the merging of local police with Federal enforcement efforts.

This morning, at the same time that a cloture vote on DREAM is expected in the Senate, there is going to be a rally in front of Governor Paterson’s Manhattan office today to demand rescission of New York’s agreement with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to bring a deportation program called “Secure Communities” to New York State.

With no public input, New York’s Division of Criminal Justice Services signed an agreement with ICE in May this year to bring Secure Communities to New York. Under the program, law enforcement agencies in the state are required to automatically forward to federal immigration databases the fingerprints of every arrested person. Undocumented immigrants, US citizens, and lawful permanent residents alike are subject to these database checks. Based on often unreliable and incomplete information, ICE then transfers people suspected of being deportable directly into the detention and deportation system, separating them from their families and communities.

Following the rally, the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) and the Kathryn O. Greenberg Immigration Justice Clinic of Cardozo Law will request an emergency injunction in federal court in a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit NDLON v. ICE filed on behalf of the National Day Laborer Organization Network (NDLON). Advocates are asking a judge to counteract the misinformation by opening the files related to the “opt-out” policies immediately.

I am fascinated by how DREAM is covered in the media vs Secure Communities. I am equally fascinated by how politicians and “advocates” are covering the issue. Or shall I say not covering.
What we see here is the good vs bad immigrant narrative at work again. For those on the middle of the political road/spectrum something like DREAM makes more/safe sense to get behind because we are talking about young people painted as “innocent victims” of their parents “illegal” activity. DREAMers are the educated and in some cases the new soldiers of ever increasing wars of U.S. conquest globally. Those caught by Secure Communities? Well those are the criminals because only criminals would have their fingerprints in the system, not because they applied for a job, or applied for a visa and certainly not because law enforcement racially profiles and puts people through the system for selling empanadas on the corner or for using your kid’s Metrocard to get to your less than minimum wage job (as happened to a beloved friend of mine).

Image Via / Deportation Nation