New ICE Detainer Guidance Too Little, Too Late

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On the Friday before Christmas, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) released new guidance on immigration “detainers, online ” the lynchpin of agency enforcement programs involving cooperation with local police. In the new guidance, ICE Director John Morton instructed agency employees to only file detainers against immigrants who represent agency “priorities.” Unfortunately, as with prior agency memos on prosecutorial discretion, the detainer guidance is so riddled with loopholes that it could have little—if any—practical effect. The new guidance defines “priorities” so broadly as to make the term virtually meaningless. As is now well known, immigration detainers are requests (not commands) sent by ICE to local jails asking for selected inmates to be held even after they would otherwise be entitled to release. Although the federal government has issued detainers for decades, their use has become especially common following the expansion of Se Communities…

Study Says 287(g) Program Is Counterproductive

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A new study revealed that a program that was once intended to protect Davidson County against acts of terrorism was counterproductive. The study released Wednesday was conducted by the American Civil Liberties Union of Tennessee and it focuses on the consequences of the 287(g) program. The 287(g) program was once used by the Davidson County Sheriff’s department to enforce immigration law and allow deputies to check the immigration status of anyone brought to the jail. The report alleges that it leads to immigrants being treated differently, and to be detained often for minor infractions. According to the new study, the program makes immigrants lose trust in public safety. The study said the majority of people arrested were racially profiled and deported for minor traffic offenses.

Legitimacy Of Se Communities Program Weakened

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Last week was a rough one for Se Communities, a controversial federal deportation program that critics charge is counterproductive and unconstitutional. The most significant developments came from California, where the program has essentially lost support at the city and state levels. The S-Comm program is run by the Department of Homeland Security’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), which uses fingerprints taken when someone is arrested to automatically check the person’s immigration status. If immigration officials have any concerns, they ask local law enforcement to hold that person for an additional 48 hours to give an immigration agent time to pick up the arrestee. However, critics of the program charge that it casts too broad a net, scooping up non-criminals, lawful immigrants, even victims of crime. California Attorney General Kamala Harris attempted to clear up longstanding confusion about the program last Tuesday when she issued a directive informing…

LAPD scales back its participation in Se Communities | 89.3 KPCC

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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…

Se Communities is a program gone wild – Navarette

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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…