LAPD scales back its participation in Se Communities | 89.3 KPCC

The Los Angeles Police Department will no longer detain some undocumented suspects on behalf of federal immigration authorities, the L.A. Police Commission decided Tuesday. The commission made that change at the request of LAPD Chief Charlie Beck. He told commissioners that L.A. should lead the way in correcting flaws in the federal Se Communities program. Under that program, local law enforcement agencies automatically share fingerprints of anyone they arrest with federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement. ICE then has the option of asking police to detain arrestees for 48 hours so the immigration agency can begin deportation proceedings. LAPD Assistant Chief Michel Moore told the Police Commission the program is ICE’s “primary engine for the identification and removal of criminal aliens and others who pose a threat to public safety.” But the LAPD’s six-month survey of ICE detetainer requests indicated that 10 percent were for people who had no criminal histories and were…

Daños dejados por el huracán Sandy, una pesadilla para mexicanos indocumentados

A Josías, el hijo de dos años de Miguel Alarcón Morales, se le agravó un asma porque la familia sigue viviendo en el segundo piso de una vivienda que se inundó con el paso del feroz huracán “Sandy”. La casa está llena de moho y huele a humedad, la pintura se desprende de las paredes, explicó el padre. “No es seguro vivir allí, respirando todo eso,

Criminal justice administration students create video for Hayward Day Laborer Center

Cal State East Bay criminal justice administration students have provided the Hayward Day Labor Center with a video to inform day laborers on protecting themselves against wage theft and other forms of exploitation. Alejandro Galindo, job developer and legal advocate for the center, says the film is so successful that similar organizations across the country are already asking for a similar video to address their needs. Silvina Ituarte, professor and chair of CSUEB’s Criminal Justice Administration Department, learned of this need from consulting with Galindo, and offered a Day Laborer Center project to her student this fall in the “Prejudice, Violence and Hate Crimes” (CRJA 4330) class.  Criminal justice majors Joshua Chavez, Ramneet Dhillon, Robert Huerta, Andreina Leon, Kristen Martin, Vinh Nguyen, Jagdeep Singh, Jaclyn Skinner, Helen Luu and Bryant Weatheroy created the film in about six weeks, with the leadership of Huerta, who owns a film company.

Santa Cruz Sheriff Says He’ll Work with Governor and Ammiano

Santa Cruz County Sheriff-Coroner Phil Wowak said Friday there won’t be immediate changes to how the county handles inmates eligible to be deported under a controversial immigration program, and that future changes are likely to come as part of a broader shift across California. Wowak made the comments after state Attorney General Kamala Harris this week told local jailers that compliance with the Justice Department’s Se Communities program was optional. So far, thousands of illegal immigrants nationwide have been plucked from local jails and sent back to their native country under the 4-year-old program, many without facing serious charges. “Our goal is to get a consistent approach rather than individual interpretations and individual responses from different counties,” Wowak said Friday after returning from an Oakland meeting of the California State Sheriffs’ Association, where Harris’ bulletin was discussed. Wowak stressed that the state’s top cop’s carries no legal weig

Se Communities is a program gone wild – Navarette

President Obama’s over-the-top approach to immigration enforcement — including an overreliance on the harmful program known as Se Communities — has devastated immigrant communities in the United States. And it has divided Democrats. This became clear last year when three Democratic governors — Deval Patrick of Massachusetts, Pat Quinn of Illinois, and Andrew Cuomo of New York — announced they were pulling out of Se Communities, only to be informed by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) that they couldn’t because — despite assurances that the program was optional — participation was mandatory. The bureaucratic snake oil didn’t end there. In theory, Se Communities — which acts as a force multiplier because it requires local police to submit to federal authorities the fingerprints of anyone they arrest who they suspect might be in the country illegally (i.e., anyone who looks Latino) — should focus only on serious and violent criminals. But, in practice…

AG Harris States ICE Holds Voluntary – NBC Latino

California State Attorney General Kamala Harris issued a law enforcement bulletin Tuesday saying that complying with the federal government’s Se Communities program is voluntary. This means that if there is a federal immigration hold placed on someone taken into custody, local law enforcement can decide if they want to honor that hold, she said. This is after a review showed that the se communities program had deported too many people who were not criminals. Agencies from the Chula Vista police department to the San Diego County sheriff’s department told NBC 7 San Diego Wednesday that they were still meeting internally to decide their response to the bulletin.