A tweak to the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Se Communities program, also known as S-Comm, would allow the agency to withhold placing undocumented immigrants stopped by local law enforcement for traffic violations into deportation proceedings until “conviction for the minor criminal traffic offense.” But the change, introduced following a task force report that recommended changes to S-Comm, still means that undocumented immigrants are at risk for being deported for missing a traffic light or speeding. So what has really changed in the policy? Disappointingly little, say advocates. “The ICE announcement was a real disappointment,” said Fred Tsao, policy director with the Illinois Coalition for Immigration and Refugee Rights (ICIRR). “This is a program is in dire need of being fixed and what we ended up getting was a very, very minor change that may affect some cases but falls far short of the real reforms that the program needs.”
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