Report: ‘ICE did not clearly communicate…the intent of Se Communities’ | Multi-American

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Immigration officials may not have intentionally misled lawmakers or the public about the controversial Se Communities immigration enforcement program, but their communication strategy was a mess, according to an investigation by Homeland Security’s Office of Inspector General. The OIG investigation was requested last year by California’s Rep. Zoe Lofgren, a Democrat from San Jose, after states and local jurisdictions trying to withdraw from the federal fingerprint-sharing program began learning they could not. It’s one of two new OIG reports related to Se Communities, the other addressing the program’s operations. The communications analysis is perhaps the most interesting of the two, among other things examining the Se Communities memorandums of agreement, called MOAs, which states and jurisdictions signed after the program began rolling out in late 2008.

ICE caused confusion about Se Communities, says DHS OIG – FierceHomelandSecurity

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Homeland Security Department officials stoked confusion among state and local jurisdictions over whether participation in a program to match arrestee fingerprint data against a federal immigration database was voluntary, medical a DHS office of inspector general report says. As a result, the data sharing effort, known as Se Communities, “continues to face opposition, criticism, and resistance in some locations,” the report states.

They Want to Work

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It has been more than six months since the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit ruled that Redondo Beach, click Calif., violated the Constitution with an ordinance making it illegal for day laborers to solicit work from the sidewalk. The city had used the ordinance to crack down on immigrant laborers in…

Sheriff Hall’s Annual 287(g) Snow Job – Nashville Scene

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It’s budgetary hearing season in Metro government, and that means media outlets are reporting on various cuts and belt-tightenings faced by city departments. FOX 17’s intrepid reporter, Sky Arnold, dusted off an old story about the Davidson County Sheriff Office’s controversial 287(g) program and made it his own. For nearly 90 seconds, Arnold says that the federal program that enables the DSCO to actively police immigrant communities, slap its members (such as pregnant women and overachieving high school students) with paltry offenses like traffic citations and deport them to their countries of origin is working for taxpayers because the sheriff said so. In doing so, Arnold perpetuates the myth that the program actually saves taxpayers money because all of those deported illegal aliens aren’t clogging up the county jail. – 04.03.2012

Day laborer supporters rally in Pomona – ContraCostaTimes

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A group of day laborers urged Pomona City Council members on Monday night to continue providing funding for the Pomona Economic Opportunity Center. The center, also known as the Pomona Day Labor Center, has been open for about 15 years with financial support from the city. In recent years, the center received financial assistance through the city’s now defunct redevelopment agency. The center has not received funding since the middle of last year following the approval of state legislation approving the dismantling of redevelopment agencies around the state. The passage of the legislation kicked off months in which the future of redevelopment agencies became unclear. Day laborers and their supporters, which included students, labor organizers, immigrant rights activists and others, held a rally outside of Pomona City Hall prior to the start of Monday’s meeting. – Contra Costa Times 04.03.2012

Screening of “A Better Life” and a Panel Discussion With the Director – Long Island Wins

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The National Day Laborer Organizing Network, together with the Ford Foundation, will host a special screening of the acclaimed film A Better Life, starring Academy Award-nominated actor Demián Bichir as a day laborer striving to provide better opportunities for his son. Following the screening, a panel of distinguished guests, including A Better

Guatemala Day Laborer’s Dream of Being Announcer Comes True – Latin American Herald Tribune

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LOS ANGELES – The voice of Luis Gonzalez is heard Monday through Friday from 8:00 to 4:00 p.m. on Radio Centro Laboral, a Los Angeles-based online station over which this Guatemalan day laborer broadcasts a message of hope. Listening to him speak and hearing his tone of voice, story his cadence and diction, it sounds like his natural destiny in life was to be an announcer – but getting there took him 50 years. “I’m 52 years old and all my life I admired the great radio announcers, I dreamed of being one, but thought it was too hard because I only studied up to the sixth grade and I’ve always had to work hard to earn a living,” Gonzalez told Efe in an interview. He came to the United States in the year 2000 looking for a better life, and eventually came upon one of the day-laborer centers of the Institute of Popular Education of Southern California, or IDEPSCA, where immigrants from different countries gather every day hoping for contractors to show up and give them work.

S-Comm system: End it, not mend it – The Asheville Citizen-Times

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Any day now the Department of Homeland Security will announce a second round of “reforms” to the disgraced S-Comm, order or “Se Communities, see ” program. The harsh reality is that S-Comm is too broken to be fixed. Opponents have long charged that the program, which requires state and local jails to run immigration background checks on any person booked into custody — regardless of the seriousness or ultimate disposition of their charges — is undermining community safety and jeopardizing civil rights. Hundreds of thousands of family members have been deported, and public safety has been damaged by making witnesses and victims of crimes fear contact with police. North Carolina ranks No. 5 in states that deport the most number of people because of S-Comm.