Immigrant Rights Groups Call for Transparency as They Serve FOIA Request to Uncover the Truth about ICE’s “Discontinuation” of Se Communities

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE // PLEASE EXCUSE CROSS-POSTINGS // PLEASE FORWARD Press AdvisoryDate: March 16, 2015Contacts: Claudia Bautista, cbautista@ndlon.org Immigrant Rights Groups Call for Transparency as They Serve FOIA Request to Uncover the Truth about ICE’s “Discontinuation” of Se Communities WHAT: ICE out of LA Coalition will deliver FOIA request to local ICE Field Office WHEN:…

NDLON Files FOIA Requesting Detainer Quota Docs

  Contact: B. Loewe, NDLON, 773.791.4668, bloewe {at} ndlon.org   Delay of Deportation Review Sparks New Inquiry into Obama Administration Deportation Policy: FOIA demands transparency to restore widening trust gap:Is Deportation Quota Behind Agency’s Shift Toward More Drastic Approach?   Today, the National Day Laborer Organizing Network (NDLON) and the Kathryn O. Greenberg Immigration Justice…

Landmark $1.2 Million Fee Settlement in Immigration Policy FOIA Case

June 28, 2013, New York – The day after the Senate passed a disappointing immigration reform bill, the U.S. government agreed to pay over $1.2 million in attorneys’ fees in the historic Freedom of Information (FOIA) lawsuit NDLON v. ICE. Rights groups brought the case in 2010 to force the government to turn over documents about the so-called Se Communities (SCOMM) program. Since its rollout in 2008, SCOMM has spread nationwide, over the protests of local and state leaders, and contributed to the Obama administration’s widely criticized, record-setting deportation numbers.  Through SCOMM, the federal government targets all people booked into local jails, regardless of how minor the charges, even if charges are dropped, which has resulted in widespread

Lawsuit Filed Against Federal Agencies to Uncover Possible Influence on Immigration Bill

 Freedom of Information Act Suit to Shed Light on Tactics to Halt California TRUST Act

SAN FRANCISCO, April 9, 2013—The Asian Law Cacus, a legal and civil rights organization serving low-income Asian Pacific American communities, has sued federal immigration authorities for information about whether they helped defeat a bill meant to limit entanglement between California law enforcement and U.S. immigration agencies.

The lawsuit seeks information from the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency and the Department of Homeland Security under the Freedom of Information Act about possible efforts to encourage the Governor’s office and state sheriff’s association to oppose the TRUST Act, AB-4.

Had the TRUST Act passed last year, it would have restricted California’s involvement in the Se Communities program, which relies on local police to hold individuals suspected of being deportable upon arrest until ICE can pick them up for possible deportation. Last summer, the bill reached Gov. Jerry Brown’s desk with robust support from both legislative houses, but he vetoed it. 

Judge Approves Landmark Settlement in Immigration Policy Case

FBI, DHS and ICE Agree to Release Crucial Documents Relating to Controversial

Deportation Dragnet Program, Se Communities

 

March 15, 2013, New York – Last night, a federal judge approved a settlement between the government and several rights groups in a long-running lawsuit demanding transparency in the controversial Se Communities (SCOMM) program.

Since its rollout in 2008, SCOMM has spread nationwide, over the protests of local and state leaders, contributing to the Obama administration’s widely criticized, record-setting deportation numbers.  The program targets all people booked into local jails, regardless of how minor the charges or even if no charges are pressed at all. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has recently come under fire for revelations that it has trolled state agencies and local jails looking for low-level offenders so as to meet its arbitrary criminal deportation quotas.     

Unprecedented Collaboration Between Georgia Law Enforcement and Federal Immigration Officials Prompts Lawsuit Demanding Transparency

    DHS and ICE violate Freedom of Information Act by failing to respond to six month old request.   Atlanta, GA –  October 24, 2012  Today the Georgia Latino Alliance for Human Rights (GLAHR) and the ACLU of Georgia filed a lawsuit against the Department of Homeland Security and Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The…

Newly Obtained Documents Reveal Se Communities Program Leads to Deportations of People Who Have Never Been Arrested

July 3, 2012—Today, advocates released emails from the FBI and the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE) that show that ICE’s controversial Se Communities deportation program is sweeping in individuals who have never been criminally arrested. The emails—which were obtained as a result of Freedom of Information Act litigation brought by the National Day Laborer…

ICE Appeals in Se Communities Case; Continues Effort to Hide Program’s Legal Basis

Late yesterday, defendants in the case NDLON v ICE filed an appeal and emergency stay to block a court order requiring the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency to make public a legal memorandum detailing the agency’s rationale for converting Se Communities into a mandatory program.

 

Federal district court Judge Shira Scheindlin had ordered ICE to produce the memorandum by November 14.  Advocates will continue to argue for immediate release of this key memo.  It is the only document produced to date that, although heavily redacted, appears to comprehensively describe the legal authority claimed by ICE in support of its position mandating state and local participation in the program.

 

Said Jessica Karp of the National Day Laborers Organizing Network (NDLON), “While ICE has sprinted to implement S-Comm across the country, they’ve done the opposite to comply with court orders that would bring transparency to the program.  The fact that the agency is fighting so hard to prevent the public’s access to this key document forces the question of what ICE is hiding.”

 

Instead of complying, ICE is challenging Judge Scheindlin’s October 24 Order which stated, “Once an agency has adopted a legal analysis as its own…that analysis becomes the government’s ‘working law,’ and the public ‘can only be enlightened by knowing what the [agency] believes the law to be.’”

 

Said Center for Constitutional Rights attorney Sunita Patel, “ICE’s on-going strategy of delaying release of important Se Communities documents must be stopped.  Lack of transparency continues to prevent needed scrutiny of Se Communities. The public deserves access to the program’s full scope and underlying rationale.”

 

Said Sonia Lin of the Kathryn O. Greenberg Immigration Justice Clinic at the Cardozo School of Law, “States and localities around the country have opposed Se Communities and sought ways to limit the impact of the program on the safety and security of their communities.  The public needs the truth about this massive deportation program now.”   

  

The lawsuit was originally brought by the Center for Constitutional Rights and the Immigration Justice Clinic of the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law with the law firm of Mayer Brown LLP on behalf of the National Day Laborer Organization Network.

 

Visit CCR’s NDLON v. ICE case page or the joint website, UncovertheTruth.org, for the text of the FOIA request,  the lawsuit filed in the Southern District of New York, and all other relevant documents.

 

 

The Center for Constitutional Rights is dedicated to advancing and protecting the rights guaranteed by the United States Constitution and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Founded in 1966 by attorneys who represented civil rights movements in the South, CCR is a non-profit legal and educational organization committed to the creative use of law as a positive force for social change. Visit www.ccrjustice.org; follow @theCCR.

 

The mission of the National Day Laborer Organization Network is to improve the lives of day laborers in the U.S. by unifying and strengthening its member organizations to be more strategic and effective in their efforts to develop leadership, mobilize day laborers in order to protect and expand their civil, labor and human rights. Visit www.ndlon.org

 

The Kathryn O. Greenberg Immigration Justice Clinic of the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law was founded in 2008 to provide quality pro bono legal representation to indigent immigrants facing deportation. Under the supervision of experienced practitioners, law students in the Clinic represent individuals facing deportation and community-based organizations in public advocacy, media and litigation projects. Visit www.cardozo.yu.edu/immigrationjustice

 

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New Documents Show Se Communities Fuels FBI’s Rapidly Expanding Surveillance System While Ignoring States’ Concer

November 10, 2011, New York  – Today, the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), the National Day Laborer Organizing Network (NDLON), and the Cardozo Immigration Justice Clinic released internal government documents concerning the controversial Se Communities program (S-Comm), newly obtained through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit.  Advocates say the documents show that S-Comm, already beleaguered with calls for termination, caused serious internal debate within the FBI at the same time that it served as pretext for the agency to rapidly expand its Next Generation Identification (NGI) initiative, which seeks to collect and distribute massive amounts of biometric information on citizens and noncitizens alike.  

 

An annotated index to the documents is available here.

 

The new documents reveal that FBI Assistant Director Jerome Pender expressed doubts about S-Comm’s effect on the FBI’s relationship with states and localities, and described the FBI’s position in the S-Comm controversy as “being stuck in the middle of a nuclear war.”  Pender wrote:  “I don’t see how we can use [fingerprint] data in a way the owner explicitly bans.  This could cause the whole CJIS model [of information sharing between the FBI and states and localities] to implode.” (Email chain between Deputy Assistant Director of CJIS’s Operations Branch, Jerome Pender, CJIS Assistant Director, Daniel Roberts, Deputy Assistant Director, Stephen Morris, and other FBI officials, May 10, 2011, FBI-SC-FPL-00487-488).

 

However, the FBI continued to ignore state and local partners’ demands to limit the use of their data and instead continued to press for S-Comm to be mandatory and expanded data sharing to other domestic agencies and foreign governments.

 

Said Center for Constitutional Rights attorney Sunita Patel, “It is now crystal clear that the FBI is using Se Communities to experiment on biometric-based surveillance. In pushing for S-Comm and interoperability to be mandatory, the FBI has prioritized collecting personal biometric data on citizens and non-citizens alike for its massive database ahead of the interests of its state and local partners. This is bad policy and no way to operate a federal agency.”

 

According to the documents, the FBI “recognizes a need to collect as much biometric data as possible . . . and to make this information accessible to all levels of law enforcement, including International agencies.” Accordingly, it “continues to work aggressively to build biometric databases that are comprehensive and international in scope.” (Interoperability Initiatives Unit, FBI CJIS, December 2010, SC-FBI-FPL-1143-1159, at 1143.)

 

Said Jessica Karp of NDLON, “The rise of the FBI’s surveillance system places all of our civil rights at risk.  As Se Communities breaks apart the sacred bond of immigrant families, NGI undermines the basic rights we hold as sacred in a democracy. It’s clear that the FBI and ICE’s pursuit of massive personal biometric data collection as a goal in itself tramples on the rights of individuals and states. Se Communities needs to be ended before more are trapped in its dragnet.”

 

Said Sonia Lin of the Kathryn O. Greenberg Immigration Justice Clinic of the Cardozo School of Law, “In its support for mandatory S-Comm and push to expand NGI, the FBI has ignored serious concerns about community policing, the burden on local and state partners, privacy rights, and the increased risk of racial profiling.” 

 

Visit CCR’s NDLON v. ICE case page, or the joint website UncovertheTruth.org, for the text of the FOIA request, the lawsuit filed in the Southern District of New York, other documents obtained through the litigation and all other relevant documents.

 

 

The Center for Constitutional Rights is dedicated to advancing and protecting the rights guaranteed by the United States Constitution and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Founded in 1966 by attorneys who represented civil rights movements in the South, CCR is a non-profit legal and educational organization committed to the creative use of law as a positive force for social change. Visit www.ccrjustice.org; follow @theCCR.

 

The mission of the National Day Laborer Organization Network is to improve the lives of day laborers in the U.S. by unifying and strengthening its member organizations to be more strategic and effective in their efforts to develop leadership, mobilize day laborers in order to protect and expand their civil, labor and human rights. Visit www.ndlon.org

 

The Kathryn O. Greenberg Immigration Justice Clinic of the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law was founded in 2008 to provide quality pro bono legal representation to indigent immigrants facing deportation. Under the supervision of experienced practitioners, law students in the Clinic represent individuals facing deportation and community-based organizations in public advocacy, media and litigation projects. Visit www.cardozo.yu.edu/immigrationjustice