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ImmigrationProf Blog
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S-Comm Destroys Public Trust

By immigrationprof

Mike Hennessey is the Sheriff of San Francisco and writes in the San Francisco Chronicle:

Hennessey 
As the sheriff of San Francisco for more than 30 years, I know that maintaining public safety requires earning community trust. We rely heavily on the trust and cooperation of all community members – including immigrants – to come forward and report crimes, either as victims or as witnesses. Otherwise, crimes go unreported – and this affects everyone, citizens and noncitizens alike. It also leads to “street justice,” in which residents who are too afraid to go to the police decide to take justice into their own hands, often with deadly result.

San Francisco has always been a city of immigrants. We are proud of our diversity. We value the contributions of immigrants to our community. Law enforcement and other civic leaders work hard to serve all of our residents in an effort to promote the health and safety of our neighborhoods. Unfortunately, Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s controversial Secure Communities program violates this hard-earned trust with immigrant residents. Under this program, the fingerprints of everyone booked into a county jail are conveyed electronically to ICE, which checks them against its own database to see if deportation should be considered. This applies to even a minor matter, such as having no driver’s license in one’s possession in a traffic stop.

This is not an exaggeration or a hypothetical: It happened here in San Francisco just a few months ago to a man with no criminal record whatsoever who was placed in federal detention and since has been deported.

The use of fingerprints to initiate immigration scrutiny is of particular concern to victims of domestic violence. In a recent case in San Francisco, a woman called 911 to report domestic violence, but the police arrested both her and her partner. Although no charges were ever filed against the woman, she is now fighting deportation. There should be no penalty for a victim of a crime to call the police. Read more..

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