For Immediate Release April 22, 2016 Contact: Armando Carmona, armando@ndlon.org, (323) 250-3018; Sierra Golden, sierra@casa-latina.org, 206.686.2640 NDLON: New Report Reveals How Seattle’s Casa Latina is Fighting Poverty Amongst Day Laborers Seattle, WA: In the 1990s Day Laborers in Seattle had very few options when looking for work, they would wait on street corners hoping someone would…
As Pressure For Action Intensifies, Scope & Timing of Expected Relief Are New Subject of Debate This morning, the Migration Policy Institute issued a new report, The Deportation Dilemma, that helps shed light on unprecedented deportations and criminal prosecution of immigrants. In recent weeks, as the President hit the inauspicious milestone of 2 million…
OIG Report on Se Communities Deportation Program Heightens Controversy over Failed Program. Advocates Decry report as “window dressing,” and renew calls: “End SCOMM. Don’t Mend it.” 04.06.2012. Washington, DC. Today, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Inspector General issued two reports on the much-maligned “Se Communities” deportation program. The reports, which come after two…
NDLON and a National Community Advisory Commission published “RESTORING COMMUNITY: A National Community Advisory Report on ICE’s Failed “Se Communities” Program,” an authoritative report on the failed Se Communities program. Download available here or it can be read online below. Add your organization to the list of endorsers here.
Reading Guide to Report Available Here
New York, NY – The Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) and the National Day Laborer Organizing Network (NDLON) welcome the publication of a new report by the Warren Institute at UC Berkeley School of Law that exposes the violations of the rights of both citizens and non-citizens alike by the Se Communities program. Released on the heels of the hard-hitting PBS expose, Lost in Detention, the new report, “SeCommunities by the Numbers: An Analysis of Demographics and Due Process,” is the first in a series to analyze federal government data related to Se Communities obtained through the Freedom of Information Act lawsuit, NDLON v. ICE, brought by the Center for Constitutional Rights, NDLON and the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law. It exposes serious due process concerns with the continued implementation and expansion of the program.
“The Warren Institute study demonstrates how deeply U.S. citizens’ own rights have been eroded in the name of immigration enforcement. The Obama administration should treat this study as the final nail in the coffin of a program that should have been buried long ago,” explains Sarahi Uribe, Organizer for the National Day Laborer Organizing Network.
The report reveals that over 3,600 U.S. citizens have been apprehended through the Se Communities program and more than one-third of the individuals identified for deportation have a spouse or child who is a U.S. citizen, thus extending the impact of the program to over 88,000 families with citizens. Furthermore, once funneled through the system, only 52 percent of detainees have a hearing before an immigration judge; and 83% of people arrested through Se Communities are placed in immigration detention.
Said CCR attorney Sunita Patel, “This new report further confirms what we know from the damning records released through our lawsuit and the experience of immigrant communities. Se Communities has been and will always be a dangerously flawed program. The Obama Administration must disconnect immigration enforcement from law enforcement. The results of merging the two systems are erosion of public safety and civil rights.”
For a short reading guide to the report, compiled by the Center for Constitutional Rights and NDLON, go to: http://uncoverthetruth.org/resources/warren-report/
To learn more about advocacy to end the Se Communities program, go to http://www.uncoverthetruth.org.
To read the full report, go to: http://www.law.berkeley.edu/files/Se_Communities_by_the_Numbers.pdf
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 and 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….
Today, the National Day Laborer Organizing Network and others made public an authoritative report condemning the Se Communities deportation program and recommending its termination.
The report includes testimony from former District Attorney of New York Robert Morgenthau, heads of law enforcement, and victims of Se Communities like Isaura in Los Angeles whose 911 call for help resulted in her deportation proceedings.
In contrast to the DHS appointed taskforce which has failed to enlist the voices of affected communities, scholars, or critics on the subject, this report constitutes a real deliberative and representative review of the program.
The report recommends that the Se Communities be terminated, that the current OIG investigation of S-Comm be expanded to all ICE Access programs, that the Department of Justice begin its own investigation into the mysterious role of the FBI in Se Communities, and that states not be compelled to share biometric data with ICE.
The following statement can be attributed to the National Community Advisory Commission
“This report confirms what immigrant communities have long known. The program called Se Communities results in the opposite. Entangling local police in immigration enforcement is not just bad policy as the experts testify. Conscripting local police into immigration enforcement has provoked a massive civil rights crisis our country now faces. The only suitable approach is to end Se Communities.”
The Commission includes: American Friends Service Committee, Project Voice New England, Asian Law Caucus, CASA de Maryland, Center for Constitutional Rights, CENTRO de Igualdad y Derechos, Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles, Colorado Immigrant Rights Coalition, Detention Watch Network, Grassroots Leadership, Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights, Immigrant Legal Resource Center, National Day Laborer Organizing Network, National Immigrant Justice Center, National Immigration Law Center, National Immigration Project of the National Lawyer’s Guild, Northern Manhattan Coalition for Immigrant Rights, Rights Working Group, Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations, We-Count!
The report is available at http://altopolimigra.com/s-comm-shadow-report/
Background on the Se Communities Program is available at www.uncoverthetruth.org and in a press brief at http://ndlon.org/pdf/scommbrief.pdf…