Posts Tagged ‘Immigration and Customs Enforcement’
District Court Orders ICE to Release S-Comm Documents
10:12 am By Maegan La Mala · Immigration|Secure Communities · 1 Comment
25 Oct 2011Last night, Judge Shira Scheindlin ordered the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency to publicly disclose by November 1 a previously withheld internal memorandum that advocates believe will shed light on the agency’s legal justification for turning Secure Communities into a mandatory immigration enforcement program.
You can read the order here (PDF)
The decision follows motions for summary judgment filed by all parties in NDLON v. ICE about the memorandum. The government claimed the memorandum was exempt from disclosure under the attorney-client and deliberative process privileges. Plaintiffs the National Day Laborers Organizing Network, Center for Constitutional Rights, and Cardozo School of Law Kathryn O. Greenberg Immigration Justice Clinic argued the memo was improperly kept secret from the public in the midst of important policy decisions related to Secure Communities. Indeed, this summer, opposition to Secure Communities reached new levels with the Governors of Illinois, Massachusetts, and New York formally rejecting the program. In response, ICE announced that all of its Memorandum of Agreements with States were dissolved and that the program would be imposed unilaterally. Despite serious questions from States, local jurisdictions, and advocates about ICE’s legal authority to make the program mandatory, the agency continued to withhold information about its legal reasoning and sought to keep the legal authority memorandum secret.
I’m hoping some of the legal heads from VivirLatino would offer up what the impact could be were it revealed that ICE explicitly meant this policy to be mandatory from inception but chose to deceive states and counties into signing on by implying that participation was optional.
In the end, I am not sure if it even matters. The fact remains that as it stands now, Secure Communities is one part of an overall national immigration policy that is focused on keeping deportation numbers up, while keeping immigrant communities, especially people of color immigrant communities down.
More Responses to Secure Communities Officially Becoming a Mandatory Deportation Program
12:08 pm By Maegan La Mala · Immigration|Politics|Secure Communities · 1 Comment
12 Aug 2011It’s been exactly a week since the Department of Homeland Security asserted the mandatory nature of the Secure Communities deportation program and voided it’s agreements with states across the country. Since then there have been numerous responses from politicians and organizations alike.
There have been “community” task force meetings in some parts of the country. There is now a push by some sectors asking for members of the task force to resign, given how DHS’s announcement shows that there is no interest on the part of the government in hearing from members of any community regarding the impact of S-Comm. For example, this afternoon in Tuscon, there will be a rally demanding that Tucson Police Chief, Roberto Villaseñor, who has been named as a member of this Taskforce, resign and not legitimize a program that will result in the most massive deportation process we have ever seen.
Obama’s Department of Homeland Security Makes It Clear that Secure Communities Was Always Mandatory
8:03 am By Maegan La Mala · Immigration|Justice|Politics · 4 Comments
8 Aug 2011If 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?
Real Changes to Deportation Policies or Window Dressing?
10:29 am By Maegan La Mala · Immigration|Obama|U.S.-Mexico Border · 6 Comments
21 Jun 2011Last week the Department of Homeland Security announced alleged changes to the way the controversial Secure Communities deportation program and deportation policies in general are carried out.
According to a series of June 17th memos released by John Morton, Director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), Secure Communities, which runs the fingerprints of those arrested through immigration databases in order to find undocumented immigrants, will continue to be rolled out with the goal that all 50 states be using the program by 2013. The memo urges immigration agents to consider how long an undocumented immigrant has been in the United States, or whether the immigrant was brought here as a child and is studying in high school or college. The authorities are also instructed to give “particular care and consideration” to veterans and active duty members of the military, especially if they have been in combat, and to their close relatives. Mr. Morton also expanded the authority of federal lawyers who handle cases in immigration courts to dismiss deportation proceedings against immigrants without serious criminal records. Mr. Morton also issued new guidelines he said would ensure that illegal immigrants detained by the police who were victims of domestic violence and witnesses to crimes would not be deported.
The memos also creates an advisory commission to study how S-Comm actually is working.
This consideration is clearly a response to the pressure not only coming from advocates and activists, but from lawmakers and state governments attempting to opt-out of a program sold to them as something it was never meant to be.
Advocates, activists, and elected officials across the country rejected the memos as cosmetic and continue to demand a moratorium on the use of S-Comm as well as allowing states to opt-out of the program. While others, including immigration attorneys, praised the changes especially when it comes to prosecutorial discretion .
Evidence Shows No Confusion on Secure Communities, Only Deception
8:52 am By Maegan La Mala · Illinois|Immigration|New York|Politics|Secure Communities · 18 Comments
20 May 2011Coming on the heels of Wednesday’s rally in front of NY Governor Andrew Cuomo’s NYC office demanding that he pull the state out of the Secure Communities deportation program are letters which show that the so-called confusion regarding the ability to opt-out was more like a cover-up.
In letters, that I will admit to finding somewhat confusing (PDF of letters here), a fired contractor, Dan Cadman says that he told DHS/ICE, in documents that have to come to light as a result of a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit, that they had the right to tell states that Secure Communities was a mandatory program. Cadman asserts that he was then told to say that Secure Communities was voluntary, especially when pushing areas with many immigrants, like New York and Cook County – Illinois, to sign agreements. The head of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, John Morton, points to Cadman as the source of confusion regarding the opt-out option. Cadman asserts that it seems to be part of the design, especially in order to get places like New York to sign on.
Immigration Enforcement Following Parents Taking Children to School in Detroit
12:38 pm By Maegan La Mala · Detriot|Immigration · 11 Comments
6 Apr 2011The first time I saw an Immigration & Customs Enforcement van was in Detroit. For some children of immigrants in Detroit, they may say the same thing and add that the last time they saw their parents was in an ICE van.
The Fair Immigration Reform Movement (FIRM) is reporting that in Detroit ICE followed parents taking their children to the Hope of Detroit Academy, detained at least two parents, and essentially forced other parents to remain inside the school, afraid of leaving and afraid of being detained by ICE. Eventually the ICE officers left.
Read more…
Secure Communities : New Numbers Show Same Old Problems
7:36 am By Maegan La Mala · Cities|Immigration|Secure Communities · 34 Comments
25 Mar 2011Yesterday, a coalition of organizations, including the National Day Laborer Organizing Network, Center for Constitutional Rights and the Kathryn O. Greenberg Immigration Justice Clinic of the Benjamin Cardozo School of Law, who have been pressing Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to be real and transparent as to how Secure Communities actually works, released some new numbers and analysis of those numbers. The specific focus of the analysis is ICE’s claim that Secure Communities (S-Comm) focuses on “dangerous criminal immigrants”. The new analysis shows that claim to be completely false.
“Nationally, 1 in 4 people deported under S-Comm haven’t been convicted of any crime. That ratio jumps to over 50% in Boston, certain areas of California, and in multiple examples across the country..” Explained Bridget Kessler of Benjamin Cardozo School of Law
25 percent overall non-criminal deportations and in an urban area like Boston as jump to over half shows that the focus of ICE and of immigration policy under Obama overall, is deport as many as you can so you can claim success in “the war against illegals“.
When questioned during a recent House Appropriations Committee Hearing on March 11th, Director of ICE John Morton admitted,, “we do in fact remove non-criminals through Secure Communities.”
In other words it’s a shell game with words and lives. You can take a peek at some of the numbers below and they are disturbing, especially when looking at larger urban areas with large Latino immigrant populations. With the focus on rapid expansion of Secure Communities, it becomes clear whose security is being prioritized and it is not that of the families whose lives are torn apart.
Read more…
Workplace Raids Targeting Employers or Employed?
10:58 am By Maegan La Mala · Immigration|Labor · 16 Comments
20 Jan 2011This morning U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (I.C.E) is set to announce the creation of a new office with the express job of auditing companies suspected of hiring undocumented workers. While the alleged purpose of these efforts to is to insure that companies use workers eligible to the work in the U.S. and to find those that don’t, the effects increase the number of unemployed overall.
From the Wall Street Journal:
Mr. Morton [head of I.C.E] said the new center would have the “express purpose” of providing support to regional immigration offices conducting large audits. “We wouldn’t be limited by the size of a company,” he said.
The audits, which have affected garment makers, fruit growers and meat packers, result in the firing of everyundocumented immigrant on a company’s payroll. Companies say this has hurt them, especially as they can’t attract American workers even during an economic downturn.
Last year, for example, Gebbers Farm, an agricultural concern in Brewster, Wash., dismissed an estimated 550 workers—about a quarter of the local population—after ICE told the company a number of its employees’ hiring documents were suspect.
DHS’s Napolitano Admits There is No Opt Out for Secure Communities and Shows Off New Deportation Numbers
10:36 am By Maegan La Mala · Immigration|Politics · 6 Comments
7 Oct 2010Yesterday, I wrote about how I understood why some Latinos may sit this election out, especially in the face of increasing immigrant enforcement policies while candidates pay lip service to change and reform on the campaign trail.
Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Director John Morton held a press conference yesterday that revealed more information about the deportation numbers under the Obama administration and the truth about Secure Communities.
During that announcement, which was livestreamed, according to America’s Voice, ICE announced 392,000 deportations last yr. 195k “criminal.” Which would make 197k non-criminal deported. Napolitano, on the record, stated that it is not possible for localities to opt out of “secure communities” program , contradicting earlier statements indicating that localities could opt-out.
I.C.E Needs to Learn a Lesson from the NYPD When It Comes to Rebranding
8:56 am By Maegan la Mamita Mala · Immigration · 1 Comment
22 Jun 2010That lesson is that rebranding won’t change the perceptions of the communities that continue to be brutalized.
According to an article in today’s Washington Post, Immigration and Customs Enforcement is “streamlining and realigning” meant to highlight the agencies efforts against terrorism and other anti-criminal activities and take attention away from their immigration enforcement efforts including increased workplace raids and the use of local law enforcement agencies as deputized immigration agents through programs like Secure Communities and 287(g).
“Public perception is dominated by civil immigration enforcement responsibilities, even though half of the agency is devoted to something else,” Morton said recently after announcing the changes to ICE employees. “We’re not going to get away from immigration. It’s very important from a national security perspective.”
Enforcement policy will not change and since there is no immigration reform happening nationally, this means that all the posters of I.C.E. agents hugging undocumented immigrants can be hung along the border wall and handed out as souvenirs to children separated from their parents.
Ok so maybe I’m being a little dramatic but thinking about the New York City Police Department rebranding efforts after a series of police brutality incidents in the late 1990′s, I’m not to far off.
Hola!
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