NY Daily News: Don’t Expand 287(g) Program

Yesterday, I noted the opposition that many immigrant rightgs programs have voiced to the DHS expansion of the 287(g) program. Today, Albor Ruiz writes in the NY Daily News:

The more things change the more they stay the same. When it comes to immigration, despite the promises, that old dictum seems as truthful under President Obama as ever.

Believe it or not, despite Obama’s stated commitment to tackle immigration reform, Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano is expanding the disastrous 287(g) program. This program, said Aarti Shahani, co-author of “Local Democracy on ICE,” – a thorough investigation of the 287(g) – “turns traffic cops into jail guards and deportation agents.”

According to Shahani, the program has been under intensive investigation for rampant mismanagement on the part of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), and racial profiling on the part of lawmen such as Arizona’s infamous Sheriff Joe Arpaio, who operates the nation’s largest 287(g) agreement.

Implemented under George W. Bush, it authorizes police, traffic cops and correction officers to arrest immigrants without cause. At the time of its inception it was justified as a public safety program designed to get “illegal criminal aliens” off the streets.

Instead, the 287(g) quickly became synonymous with racial profiling and human rights abuse. The much ballyhooed program has done nothing to increase public safety, enhance national security or solve the immigration crisis. Click here for the rest of the column.

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