Immigration enforcement program to be shut down – USATODAY

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The Obama administration is starting to shut down a program that deputized local police officers to act as immigration agents. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials have trained local officers around the country to act as their agencies’ immigration officers. Working either in jails or in the field, the officers can check the immigration status of suspects and place immigration holds on them. The program, known as 287(g), reached its peak under President George W. Bush, when 60 local agencies signed contracts with ICE to implement it. But that trend slowed significantly under President Obama— only eight agencies have signed up since he took office, and none has done so since August 2010.

The Buck Stops Here: How the LA County Sheriff’s Participation in Immigration Enforcement is Hurting Community Policing and Public Safety

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For the last few years, I have been engaging fellow law enforcement leaders in a dialogue about sensible immigration reform. Immigration is an issue that affects our work as cops on a daily basis. But, sometimes I’m asked whether the fact that law enforcement is engaged in immigration enforcement really has an impact on victims or witnesses coming forward or not. The tragedy of sexual abuse of school children at Miramonte Elementary School, a part of the Los Angeles Unified School district and located in a largely poor Latino neighborhood, has, sadly, answered that question once and for all. – Arturo Venegas. 02.16.2012

Comite de Jornaleros v City of Redondo Beach

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This groundbreaking civil rights lawsuit begin in 2004, when the City of Redondo Beach initiated the “Day Labor Enforcement Project.” Under a local ordinance that made soliciting day labor a crime, police arrested over 50 day laborers. The Comite de Jornaleros de Redondo Beach and NDLON, represented by MALDEF, immediately brought suit, arguing that the City’s ordinance violated the First Amendment.

On September 16, 2001, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, sitting en banc, struck down the ordinance, declaring: “We agree with the day laborers that the Ordinance is a facially unconstitutional restriction on speech.” The case is the first at the federal appellate level to decide the constitutionality of an anti-solicitation ordinance aimed at day laborers. On February 21, 2012, the Supreme Court declined to hear Redondo Beach’s appeal. The Supreme Court’s decision removed the City’s last chance to preserve its unconstitutional restriction on speech and confirmed the Ninth Circuit’s decision as controlling law throughout the western United States.

Obama Will Cut 287(g) to Expand Se Communities in 2013

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“What the Obama administration is signaling with its proposed 2013 budget is that it’s getting what it wants out of the comparatively less pricey Se Communities program, check ” said Julianne Hing, for Colorlines.com’s immigration reporter. “The two local enforcement programs have identical goals but a slightly different design. Where 287(g) allows local law enforcement to enforce immigration policy and initiate a person’s deportation proceedings, S-Comm instead allows the federal government to check out the arrest databases of local police and request that people be detained remotely.” S-Comm is cheaper, Hing said, and deserves a great deal of credit for helping the Obama administration reach its record-breaking deportation records. COLORLINES 02.14.2012