Meant to Ease Fears of Deportation Program, Federal Hearings Draw Anger (Secure Communities)

[alp227]

Source: The New York Times

A task force set up by the Obama administration to ease political tensions over a deportation program has held the last of four public hearings, which instead served largely to galvanize vocal protests against the policy.

Immigrant, labor and church groups walked out halfway through the session Wednesday in Arlington, Va., banging drums and denouncing the hearing as a “sham” intended to gloss over deep problems with the program, known as Secure Communities.

Immigrant and Latino groups also marched out of hearings this month in Los Angeles and Chicago, calling for a halt to the program. In Chicago, six illegal immigrants, all students, were arrested after briefly stopping traffic outside the hearing. The students were later released. The first hearing, in Dallas, drew heated debate but less militant protests.

With a series of initiatives since June, the Obama administration has sought to tighten the focus of its deportation strategy on illegal immigrants who also have been convicted of crimes, especially serious violent and drug offenses. Officials say the rapid expansion of Secure Communities to cover the whole country by 2013 is part of that plan.

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/26/us/politics/26immig.html

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I thought that those groups would want to support deporting illegal immigrants convicted of crimes and past deportees too. As far as I've heard, Secure Communities runs the fingerprints of arrested people against a Homeland Security database that recorded immigration violations. As much as I despise the right-wing strawman use of "amnesty" and "open borders" to describe immigration reform advocates, these groups reported here seem to validate the smears.

[bhikkhu]

1. Its possible they don't know of the policy changes being debated

...which sounds absurd, but it would hardly be the first time a program was made more rational, effective (and in this case, forgiving), and nevertheless was roundly criticized, out of habit.

[McCamy Taylor]

2. They are expressing anger at how things are currently being done and how

easy it would be for this blanket fingerprinting/FBI screen of all immigrants to be used to discourage immigrants from contacting authorities if crimes are committed against them. I.e. the immigrants are reduced to the status of Blacks living under Jim Crow when law enforcement existed to oppress them rather than protect them. When you say only "serious" crimes, who decides what is serious? Will smoking weed be "serious"? How about a domestic dispute? How about an unpaid hospital bill and failure to keep a court date?

Labor walked out because it knows immigrants who are scared will not report work place violations to OSHA and will become easy sweat shop fodder for Dixie Cup---bringing down wages for all Americans.

[pampango]

3. (MA) GOP files plan to force state into Secure Communities

http://www.bostonherald.com/news/politics/view/20110825gop_files_plan_to_force_state_into_secure_communities/srvc=home&position=recent

Legislative Republicans today announced plans to file legislation forcing the Patrick administration to join Secure Communities, a federal program aimed at cracking down on criminal illegal immigrant that has sparked allegations by immigrant advocates and officials in some states that the program leads to profiling and nets petty criminals, rather than the serious offenders that supporters say are the targets.

Secure Communities has been billed as a program in which the FBI, which routinely collects fingerprint information from local police departments, shares that information with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. After repeated flare-ups and conflicts with states and immigration groups, the federal government announced earlier this month that it would terminate all agreements with states and implement the program unilaterally, negating the call by Republicans for the state to join the program.

Gov. Deval Patrick has wavered over plans to join Secure Communities, suggesting during last year’s reelection campaign that he was still reviewing the program and then dispatching senior officials to suggest that the federal government was mandating participation.

When other states, like New York and Illinois, suggested they would opt out of the program, Patrick followed suit and said he intended not to join, despite the continuing insistence by federal authorities that states would be forced to join by 2013. Earlier this month, the Obama administration suggest that immigration authorities would reinforce efforts to target only the most serious criminals among the illegal immigrant population.

[Lance_Boyle]

4. Why were the illegal aliens released and not held for deportation?

ICE should not be running a catch and release program. If illegal aliens opt to present themselves for arrest, then they damned well ought to be held until they are deported.

[pampango]

5. "My First Time Facing the Anti-Immigrant Crowd"

http://americasvoiceonline.org/blog/entry/My_First_Time_Facing_the_Anti_Immigrant_Crowd/

The Secure Communities Task Force hearing in Arlington, Virginia Wednesday night was not my first protest, but it was my first exposure to what we call “antis”—people from the anti-immigrant crowd. Some were reasonable, and some were not. Some were people I felt I could have a conversation with, and some were so unbelievable in their comments and beliefs that I thought they must be joking.

The hearing began smoothly and cordially as the task force introduced themselves. The mood changed immensely after the first person spoke. He was an “anti,” and it was my first time witnessing someone directly speaking against immigrants. It was riveting, the way he spoke about his personal experience with an undocumented immigrant. He had memorized the person’s name, including middle name and both last names. He spoke about the person as if he was not human...as if he was naming a species of animal.

At first, he seemed earnest and frank about Secure Communities being the best policy for Virginia. But as he continued, he began to use offensive terms, speculating that a murderer in his neighborhood had been “an illegal.” He lost even more respect when he brought up 9/11, which prompted our immigrant supporters in the crowd to yell that “we are not terrorists!”

I could not believe my ears. I was incredulous that someone could blame immigrants for as much as he did. I thought it some twisted joke gone wrong. But I checked myself, and realized this was not a game. This was not acting. This was not funny. This was as real as it got.

[bemildred]

6. Stirring up the xenophobes is always a mistake. nt