S-Comm Task Force Issues Recommendations Amid Resignations

From the LA Times:

A group tasked with suggesting fixes for the Secure Communities immigration enforcement program released its report on Thursday as five committee members resigned in disagreement, including all three union members and a retired police chief.

The task force recommended the Department of Homeland Security start over and “reintroduce” the program in areas where it has proved unpopular, and recommended undocumented immigrants with minor traffic offenses be exempted from removal proceedings through the program. The five members of the 19-member task force resigned because they could not support the final recommendations and disagreed with the committee’s decision-making process.

Arturo Venegas, retired police chief of Sacramento and director of the Law Enforcement Engagement Initiative, said the committee’s recommendations fall “far short” of the principles he kept in mind throughout the council.

“I believe that people with minor infractions, such as driving without a license, will still be put into deportation proceedings based on the scheme recommended by the task force,” he wrote in a letter to Chuck Wexler, chairman of the task force. “Immigrants will continue to fear that contact with the police could lead to deportation, crimes will go unreported, and criminals will remain free to prey on others.”

Secure Communities, a central part of the administration’s goal to deport 400,000 undocumented immigrants per year, relies on fingerprints taken by local police to detect and remove undocumented immigrants. But critics of the program argue it nets too many people who commit minor crimes, such as traffic violations, or who are charged but never convicted. Read more…

Response from NILC:

SECURE COMMUNITIES: TASK FORCE RECOMMENDATIONS DON’T REFLECT REALITY

Program Should Be Shelved, Not Tweaked

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Amid a flutter of resignations, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Advisory Council Task Force today released its report and recommendations on Secure Communities, a fingerprint sharing immigration enforcement program that has eroded public trust in law enforcement. The recommendations were not signed by several of the task force’s 20 members, some of whom called for the suspension of the program in order to correct fundamental flaws. Below is a statement from Marielena Hincapié, executive director of the National Immigration Law Center:

“Today’s report unsurprisingly outlines several major and systemic flaws with Secure Communities. Although the task force members rightly identified many of this program’s detractions, which sever crucial ties between communities of color and law enforcement and decimate public trust between immigrant communities and the Obama administration, they failed to make the crucial call to terminate this harmful program. We commend those task force members who chose to resign rather than add their names to this incomplete report and endorse DHS’s repeated attempts to tinker with a program that is beyond repair. Unless Secure Communities is halted, it will continue to wreak havoc on the communities many of the members of the task force care about.

“The task force identified a few substantive recommendations that would reduce the number of people caught in Secure Communities’ dragnet. Unfortunately, past experience shows that when it comes to this pernicious immigration enforcement program, such recommendations go under advisement, and are never actually implemented.

“Ultimately, even major changes to Secure Communities will not restore public trust in law enforcement. The Obama administration must abandon this fundamentally flawed program. Enforcement-only immigration policies may score political points among a few voters, but it is already leading to anger and apathy among many voters who recognize these policies come at the price of community engagement and public safety. We urge DHS and its task force members to instead expend their time, intellect, and efforts on ending our country’s mass immigration enforcement-only strategies and work to increase prosperity and true safety in our communities.”

bh