The Obama administration has spent nearly four years trying to convince states and local law enforcement that the federal immigration program known as Se Communities is narrowly targeted to deporting dangerous criminals. It’s not. And late last month, the administration finally conceded as much when it announced long-overdue reforms that should restore some credibility and fairness to the controversial program. Se Communities was created to identify “dangerous criminal aliens” for deportation. Local law enforcement agencies were supposed to send the fingerprints of arrestees to federal immigration officials, who would run them through national crime databases. If an arrestee turned out to be an illegal immigrant with a serious criminal background, a “detainer” could be issued requesting that he be held for up to 48 hours so that federal officials could take him into custody.
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