If there was any question about whether the Secure Communities deportation program was voluntary, we are one step closer to a clearer answer. On Friday, the Department of Homeland Security announced that the roll out of the program would be continuing and that all Memoranda Of Agreement (MOAs) with states that have implemented the program are terminated. In other words, the intentions of the administration are crystalline. States that have “opted out” like Illinois, New York and Massachusetts really never were meant to have that option and no one in the future will have that option. Deportation is the Obama’s administration’s commitment to the the immigration reform process.

It has been interesting, being able to read the responses from organizations, many who were demanding clarity on the issue of jurisdictions being able to opt out. Since the news was released on Friday afternoon, it hasn’t gotten the buzz it should in the so-called progressive media. There were no protests this weekend, that I know of anyway. Hopefully everyone is planning (she writes optimistically). But I doubt it (she writes more honestly).

If I were more creative, had more time and resources I would make a little puzzle, asking you, the reader, to draw a line from the language used to the organization that used it. But I have none of the aforementioned so I will just tell you what the statements said without naming names. Some organizations have called the program “botched” as if a roll out of any mass deportation program could be done in a correct way.

As pointed out by @DREAMActivist on twiter on Friday, other language being used is that of “states rights”, how through this announcement, the Federal Government is effectively using words that historically have been used as a justification for segregation and lax environmental protection. Are we seeing another example of just how big the gap is between reform and real transformation?

At least three organizations call ICE a rogue agency in their publicly released responses, as if the federal government hasn’t been asserting it’s right to deport whomever it wants, whenever it wants. Take for example the lawsuits being filed by the feds against various anti-immigrant laws like in Arizona and most recently in Alabama. As much as advocates want to frame those important lawsuits as examples of the Feds doing right by immigrant communities, what the lawsuits and this latest DHS announcement show is an assertion of who is in charge. It’s not the community. A separate organization even claimed this latest announcement as proof that S-Comm’s rules of engagement have shifted to fit DHS’s needs, and not the needs of our communities. Can the rules of a deportation program ever be said fit the needs of our communities?

Secure Communities, contrary to what President Obama and those within his circle claim, has been targeting not just the criminal “bad” undocumented immigrants, but those with no criminal backgrounds. In Oregon alone, in a little over a year, more than half of the people deported were convicted of only minor crimes or no crimes at all.

Next Thursday, August 11th, advocates will argue for the release of key documents the agency continues to withhold related to the Secure Communities opt-out policies. The issue looks like it has already been decided.