Manchester residents protest immigration program – WMUR

The so-called “Se Communities” program is starting to be rolled out state-by-state. It went into effect in New Hampshire last week without much fanfare. Officials said the program starts when police take fingerprints. Those prints are routinely sent to the FBI. Now the FBI must share those fingerprints with the Department of Homeland Security’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement division to check for illegal immigrants. While some in the public are unhappy with the idea, many in the government seem at peace with it. The governor’s office said the state routinely shares data with the federal government, and many police departments have said it doesn’t change what they do at all. Demonstrators stood on the steps of the federal building in Manchester to protest the program. “The problem with this is it leads to an increased possibility of racial profiling, an increased possibility that police might pick people up and charge them with something just to get their fingerprints…”

Racial Profiling Bill And Se Communities Intersect in CT

The recently adopted racial profiling legislation that Gov. Dannel P. Malloy is expected to sign may help the state assess the impact of the controversial federal “Se Communities” immigration policy, stuff according to the governor’s top criminal justice adviser. The bill strengthens a law requiring police to report traffic stop data so that it can be analyzed by the state for evidence of racial profiling. But Michael P. Lawlor, the Office of Policy and Management’s head of criminal justice, said that analysis could also uncover misuse of a federal immigration policy. The U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s Se Communities program shares information and fingerprints collected by local police departments with the federal immigration and customs enforcement agency. At a Thursday meeting of an advisory group created to implement the state’s new racial profiling initiative, Lawlor said he has heard concerns that police may be more inclined to fingerprint someone

Groundbreaking Report Contradicts Homeland Security Departments’ Claims About Jail Deportation Program


  NDLON Calls on Sec. Napolitano to Stop Fearmongering 

and Start Addressing Civil Rights Crisis in DHS Immigration Policy

 

Chicago, IL. 05.16.2012.

Yesterday, WBEZ released a report on recidivism of individuals released under Cook County’s progressive immigration detainer policy, passed in response to dragnet federal immigration programs. The study “finds no evidence that inmates freed from jail against the wishes of immigration authorities reoffend or jump bail more than other freed inmates do.”  In response, Pablo Alvarado of the National Day Laborer Organizing Network issued the following statement:

Groundbreaking Report Disputes ICE Claims about Jail Deportation Program

sans-serif; line-height: 22px; border-width: 0px;”>napolitanoMore than eight months since it passed, ask an ordinance that ended the Cook County Jail’s compliance with immigration detainers keeps causing sparks. The detainers are requests that the jail hold inmates up to two business days extra to help federal officials put them into deportation proceedings. Sheriff Tom Dart and some county commissioners are pressing for the ordinance to be scaled back. So is President Obama’s administration. They all say their motive is to keep dangerous criminals locked up. Yet officials offer no evidence whether inmates freed by the ordinance endanger the public more than other former inmates do. A WBEZ investigation sheds the first light.

Immigration central issue in Democratic primary for Travis sheriff

As he seeks a third term as Travis County sheriff, Greg Hamilton would prefer the race be about issues like putting more deputies on the streets and ways to improve mental health resources for people booked into the county jail. But after criticism from Hamilton’s opponent in the Democratic primary, John Sisson, the focus has shifted almost entirely to one issue: immigration. More specifically, how the sheriff’s office deals with requests from the federal government to hold suspects with questionable immigration statuses for possible deportation. Sisson has emerged as a critic of the way the Travis County Jail handles Se Communities, a program that helps the federal government identify potential deportation targets by comparing fingerprints against immigration databases after they are booked. At the center of the dispute over Se Communities are two interpretations of the federal law behind it. Hamilton points to the part of the law that says if U.S. Immigration and Customs.

Sheriff: Won’t Jail Undocumented Non-Criminals – Watsonville, CA

Sheriff Phil Wowak told a group of Watsonville residents and leaders that enforcing deportation law was not the job of sheriff’s deputies or police officers in Santa Cruz County during an emotionally-charged forum about Se Communities Wednesday evening. The event—organized by County Supervisor Greg Caput—brought service providers, elected officials and law enforcement together to speak with residents about immigration issues and specifically Se Communities, a federal program that identifies illegal immigrants through county jail systems and deports them. “We do not ask for your citizenship when you are the victim of a crime or the witness to a crime,” Wowak said to those who gathered at the Veteran’s Memorial Hall on East Beach Street for the event. He added that local police should not be checking people’s immigration status; that is a federal issue.

Immigration measure OK’d by Amherst Select Board; heads to Town Meeting

The Select Board has thrown its support behind a resolution critical of a federal immigration enforcement program and the town’s participation in it – and now Town Meeting will weigh in on the matter. Residents concerned about the Se Communities Act sought to pass the resolution but town officials said the measure could jeopardize state and federal police grants. Town Manager John Musante worked with town counsel Kopelman & Paige to come up with a revised version of the resolution, which states the town’s intention to not participate in federal law enforcement programs related to immigration enforcement. The Select Board Monday unanimously supported the resolution. “It does reflect what Amherst is about,” said Select Board member Aaron Hayden. Ruth Hooke of Precinct 8, who drafted the original version, said she is satisfied with the revision. The intention of the article is to counter the Se Communities program run by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which supporte

Asm. Ammiano formally introduces “TRUST Act 2.0” to counteract discredited deportation program

70,000 CA deportations under “Se” Communities program spark anger;

Bill puts state at forefront of movement to curb burdensome immigration detentions in local jails

Sacramento, CA – As the imposition of the scandal-plagued “Se” Communities or S-Comm deportation program in Massachusetts and New York today spurs fresh controversy, California Assemblymember Tom Ammiano (D-SF) formally introduced a revamped version of AB 1081, the TRUST Act, to reform California’s participation in the program. 

The new incarnation of AB 1081, which captured national attention last year, formally appeared “in print”  late yesterday and will pick up where the previous version left off, in the state Senate. The bill is expected to be heard in the Senate Public Safety committee next month. (Background information below.)

Feds Use Counter-Terrorism Laws to Fuel Deportation Machine

Jose Barahona says that he would have been killed had he refused to open his door when the armed guerillas occupying his town demanded he let them use his kitchen and sleep on his floor. He says that’s what happened to his father. Dead. And he says it was because of the fear of death during the war raging between the FMLN guerillas and the Salvadoran government that at the age of 24, with his new wife and baby boy, he left his Salvadoran mountain village and came to the United States where the couple would have two more children and where he’d spend the next two and half decades. He thought he’d left all the violence behind. Twenty six years after that departure, on March 22nd 2011, now 51-year-old Barahona was shuttled from a Virginia immigration detention center to an immigration court