NDLON in the News

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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

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Aaron Hurst: Going Face-to-Face With Day Laborers

and Century, Times, serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 20px; text-align: left;”>Pablo Alvarado came to the United States from El Salvador in the 1990s and worked for five years as an undocumented laborer. Today he works for the National Day Laborer Organization Network (NDLON) and helps to fight for the rights and dignity of day laborers. I learned of his story when the Taproot Foundation partnered with Pablo and NDLON and recently sat down to capture his inspiring story.

The immigration debate in this country has become really ugly in recent years.

Yes. Day laborers have become the public face of immigration. They have been demonized. Many people have described the day laborers as unwanted people and criminals. People who are murdering and harassing women. I think we are capable of having a debate in which people are not dehumanized in the process.

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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:

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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.

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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.

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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.

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