In California, Lawmakers Mount New Challenge to Se Communities
Last year, lawmakers in California were poised to pass a bill—known as the TRUST Act—to let local jurisdictions opt out of Se Communities, the federal program that routes fingerprints taken at local jails to federal immigration authorities. Before final passage, however, federal officials rendered the bill moot by declaring that participation in the program was mandatory. Now, lawmakers are considering a revised version of the bill that would minimize the impact of Se Communities by limiting the ability of local governments to detain immigrants on the federal government’s behalf. Introduced earlier this month, the new version of the TRUST Act would narrow the circumstances in which local jurisdictions could honor immigration “detainers” from the federal government. As their name suggests, detainers are requests from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) asking that particular inmates be detained beyond their date of release so that federal immigration authorities can…