Illinois Will Cancel S-Comm Agreement

In a demonstration of bold leadership, Illinois will withdraw from the Secure Communities Program. This sends a terrific message of inclusion to our nation of immigrants and an important public safety move to gain the trust of all communities.

Tanya Pérez-Brennan writes for Fox News Latino

Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn has announced his intention to drop out of the federal Secure Communities program – a decision that may serve as a precedent for other states where opposition is also mounting.

Secure Communities, which calls for automatic checks of  the immigration status of those arrested by local and state police, is “flawed,” Quinn said in a letter to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). The governor, who made his announcement on Wednesday, made clear that Illinois State Police will no longer participate. 

The withdrawal is a serious blow to the controversial immigration enforcement initiative – which has polarized communities in other states, like California and Massachusetts – despite federal pressure to implement the program nationwide by 2013.

In Massachusetts, activists say that protests by communities across the country are necessary to prevent the federal government from imposing the program on local jurisdictions.

“It’s not inevitable,” said Sarang Sekhavat, federal policy director of the Massachusetts Immigrant and Refugee Advocacy, or MIRA, Coalition. “There is a lot of pressure on the Obama administration to not let this happen…we could stop it.”

Under Secure Communities, once a person is arrested, local police can take their fingerprints and send them to an immigration database maintained by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. Standard procedure now only includes running fingerprints through an FBI database. Read more…

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