Fewer Illegal Immigrants Stopped for Traffic Violations Will Face Deportation
By JULIA PRESTON
Fewer illegal immigrants stopped by police for minor traffic violations would be held for deportation under changes announced Friday to a federal fingerprinting program, Department of Homeland Security officials said.
The policy change on how federal agents will handle illegal immigrants arrested by state and local police for offenses like driving without a license came in the department’s response to a report by a task force on the federal program.
One of the task force’s central recommendations was that the program, called Secure Communities, should avoid deportations of traffic violators.
The sharply critical task force report, issued last September, argued that such deportations were inconsistent with the department’s stated priorities of removing foreigners with serious criminal records. The increase in deportations of minor offenders under Secure Communities, the task force concluded, was undermining vital ties of trust between local police and immigrant neighborhoods.
In a 19-page response released Friday, Homeland Security officials forcefully reasserted their support for the program, which has been the center of fierce controversy since it began in October 2008. The program has put President Obama at odds with governors in Illinois, Massachusetts and New York, who are his political allies, and eroded support for him in Latino communities. Both Democrats and Republicans acknowledge that Latinos will be crucial voters in the presidential election.
Homeland Security officials also accepted almost all of the task force’s recommendations, acknowledging that poor communications by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the administering agency, had caused major confusion about the program’s goals and how it works.
The Obama administration’s changes came after a hearing at the Supreme Court on Wednesday where government lawyers argued against an Arizona law that would expand the powers of the police to enforce immigration laws. Administration officials say Secure Communities is an example of the aggressive federal enforcement that makes action by state police unnecessary and counterproductive.
In its response on Friday, the department said the program remains “the single best tool” for focusing deportation resources on immigrants who have been convicted of serious crimes, pose a threat to public safety or repeatedly violate immigration law.
Under the program, fingerprints of anyone booked by the police are checked against F.B.I. criminal databases — long a routine procedure — and also against databases of the Department of Homeland Security, which include immigration violations. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, known as ICE, has been rapidly extending the program with the goal of reaching all 3,181 jurisdictions in the country by next year.
Homeland Security officials contended that the new policy on traffic violators could bring a major change in the program’s impact.
As the program spread, more local arrests resulted in immigration holds, and illegal immigrants who did not have criminal convictions found themselves facing deportation because of tickets for speeding, burned-out tail lights or driving without a license.
In all but a handful of states, immigrants here illegally cannot obtain driver’s licenses.
Under the refinement, when illegal immigrants are arrested solely for traffic offenses and do not have a prior criminal record, federal agents will only consider placing a hold — known as a detainer — after they are convicted.
“ICE agrees that enforcement action based solely on a charge for a minor traffic offense is generally not an efficient use of government resources,” the department response says.
Immigrants arrested for drunken driving would not benefit from the new policy, officials said.
In practice, most traffic violators are released well before they are convicted, and now immigrants stopped by traffic police will not remain in custody to be picked up by federal agents.
Detainers are only in effect as long as the immigrant is in local police custody, homeland security officials said.
ICE also reported that it held more than 700 meetings last year with law enforcement agencies and immigrant advocates to explain the program.
In February, ICE created a public advocate to hear concerns of immigrants facing deportation, and has stepped up training for its staff.
The task force chairman, Chuck Wexler, executive director of the Police Executive Research Forum, praised the department’s response.
“It is encouraging in that they are not defensive and they recognize the issues we raised and appear to be committed to dealing with them,” Mr. Wexler said. His group conducts research on crime for police chiefs.
But dissension arose among task force members. Benjamin E. Johnson, executive director of the American Immigration Council, a pro-immigration group in Washington, said that ICE had not actually accepted the task force’s key recommendation, which was that no traffic offenders should be detained under Secure Communities.
Mr. Johnson said ICE would only further confuse local police by issuing immigration holds after traffic convictions.
“In a traffic setting, we were very clear that ICE should just get out of the business of issuing detainers,” Mr. Johnson said.
OBAMA’S AMERICA: Open & Undefended Borders!
Obama soft on illegals enforcement... as he builds his LA RAZA party base of illegals
Arrests of illegal immigrant workers have dropped precipitously under President Obama, according to figures released Wednesday. Criminal arrests, administrative arrests, indictments and convictions of illegal immigrants at work sites all fell by more than 50percent from fiscal 2008 to fiscal 2009.
The figures show that Mr. Obama has made good on his pledge to shift enforcement away from going after illegal immigrant workers themselves - but at the expense of Americans' jobs, said Rep. Lamar Smith of Texas, the Republican who compiled the numbers from the Department of Homeland Security's U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE). Mr. Smith, the top Republican on the House Judiciary Committee, said a period of economic turmoil is the wrong time to be cutting enforcement and letting illegal immigrants take jobs that Americans otherwise would hold.
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THE ENTIRE REASON THE BORDERS ARE LEFT OPEN IS TO CUT WAGES! “We could cut unemployment in half simply by reclaiming the jobs taken by illegal workers,” said Representative Lamar Smith of Texas, co-chairman of the Reclaim American Jobs Caucus. “President Obama is on the wrong side of the American people on immigration. The president should support policies that help citizens and legal immigrants find the jobs they need and deserve rather than fail to enforce immigration laws.”
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OBAMA, LA RAZA PARTY DEM FOR BANKSTERS AND THE RICH…American middle class gets the bills for all their crimes!
“The corporate elite, having been bailed out to the tune of trillions of dollars, wants more. Two years after the Wall Street crash, it is cracking the whip on its political representatives more imperiously than ever. In Obama, it has a president who is eager to please.”
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“PUNISH OUR ENEMIES”… does that mean assault the legals of Arizona that must fend off the Mexican invasion, occupation, growing criminal and welfare state, as well as Mex Drug cartels???
OBAMA TELLS ILLEGALS “PUNISH OUR ENEMIES”
Friends of ALIPAC,
Each day new reports come in from across the nation that our movement is surging and more incumbents, mostly Democrats, are about to fall on Election Day. Obama's approval ratings are falling to new lows as he makes highly inappropriate statements to Spanish language audiences asking illegal alien supporters to help him "punish our enemies."
Each day new reports come in from across the nation that our movement is surging and more incumbents, mostly Democrats, are about to fall on Election Day. Obama's approval ratings are falling to new lows as he makes highly inappropriate statements to Spanish language audiences asking illegal alien supporters to help him "punish our enemies."
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