program that deputized local police officers to act as immigration
agents.
John Morton, director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement for
the Department of Homeland Security, speaks Dec. 12 in Williston, Vt.
A program that deputized local police officers to act as immigration
agents is ending.
By Toby Talbot, AP
Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials have trained local
officers around the country to act as their agencies' immigration
officers. Working either in jails or in the field, the officers can
check the immigration status of suspects and place immigration holds
on them.
The program, known as 287(g), reached its peak under President George
W. Bush, when 60 local agencies signed contracts with ICE to implement
it. But that trend slowed significantly under President Obama— only
eight agencies have signed up since he took office, and none has done
so since August 2010.
Now, in their proposed budget for the upcoming year, Department of
Homeland Security officials say they will not sign new contracts for
287(g) officers working in the field and will terminate the "least
productive" of those agreements — saving an estimated $17 million. All
the contracts between ICE and local police agencies run for three
years, so that portion of the program could be finished by November
when the last contract for field officers expires.
In its budget request, DHS said officials instead will focus on
expanding Secure Communities, a program that checks the fingerprints
of all people booked into local jails against federal immigration
databases. The followup work in those cases is done by ICE agents, not
local police.
"The Secure Communities screening process is more consistent,
efficient and cost-effective in identifying and removing criminal and
other priority aliens," the department explained in its budget
request.
The program had been criticized by Homeland Security inspector general
reports, which found that local officers were not being properly
trained and there was not enough oversight to ensure that local
agencies weren't using the program to engage in racial profiling.
A study last year by the Migration Policy Institute, a non-partisan
think tank, found that immigrants developed "fear and mistrust of
authorities" when they realized that local police could act as
immigration agents.
The main complaint Friday from groups that oppose 287(g) was that the
program isn't being terminated immediately, and that its replacement —
Secure Communities — is not much better.
"The 287(g) program has been repeatedly called into question by
advocates as well as the Department of Homeland Security's inspector
general, and should be terminated rather than sustained with taxpayer
money," said Ali Noorani, executive director of the National
Immigration Forum. "The Secure Communities program is surrounded by
grave concerns about the impact to public safety, community policing
and civil rights abuses."
Defenders of the program, such as Jessica Vaughan of the Center for
Immigration Studies, say Homeland Security is "putting politics ahead
of public safety" by cutting back the 287(g) program. She said Secure
Communities is helpful but that local officers working in the field
are better able to identify illegal immigrants who may not have their
fingerprints in federal databases, making it harder to identify them.
She said some agencies such as the Colorado Department of Public
Safety have used their 287(g) officers to suppress drug and human
smuggling, gang activity and identity theft and said many sheriffs and
police chiefs prefer the program to Secure Communities.
"The problem for ICE is that while they may feel that they get
political brownie points for this kind of gesture, in reality what the
anti-enforcement groups want is for them to end 287(g) and Secure
Communities, not curtail (them)," said Vaughan, director of policy
studies for the center. "So it's futile — they end up making everyone
on both sides angry."
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