Santa Clara County Still Intends to Opt Out of S-Comm

Michael Moore writes in the Morgan Hill Times:

Despite the lead administrator saying local governments can’t opt out of a federal program to crackdown on immigration violations, Santa Clara County will adhere to previous statements which said they can.
Earlier statements from the same department that runs Secure Communities assured the county that it can opt out of the program, and that’s the word the county will accept, according to the county counsel’s office.

Earlier this year, the county was automatically enrolled in the Secure Communities initiative of the U.S. department of Immigration and Customs Enforcement – a program which requires local jails to share inmate fingerprint data with ICE, which uses the information to enforce immigration laws.

The county was enrolled in the program in May 2009, but county officials did not know about Secure Communities until October 2009.

In recent weeks the Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors unanimously voted to begin an “opt-out” process to be exempt from the ICE enforcement agenda, based on correspondence from federal officials that assured them the program is voluntary and that counties can choose not to participate.

Participating in the program would contradict the county’s policy not to assist in the enforcement of federal immigration law, county officials said. Doing so would erode trust among residents who need law enforcement assistance, jeopardizing their safety as a result, according to county officials. Read more.

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