ImmigrationSecure Communities triggers deportation of undocumented immigrants with no criminal records

The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) Secure Communities program sends fingerprint data from local law enforcement and the Federal Bureau of Investigation to immigration officers to identify and deport illegal immigrants who commit major crimes. The program may be successful (it has expanded from fourteen jurisdictions in 2008 to more than 3,000 today), but in Florida the program has triggered the deportation of 5,964 undocumened immigrants with no known criminal records. Among the 17,723 illegal immigrants deported from Florida as part of Secure Communities, 4,442 individuals had committed only misdemeanors.

“They [immigration officials] had the good sense to put a priority on trying to get the hard-core people out: terrorists and criminals and those who have committed multi-immigration violations. Other administrations had targeted everybody: day workers, nannies, maids — everybody,” said Jeffrey Brauwerman, a former immigration judge in Fort Lauderdale. “The controversy is that they also pick up people who have committed misdemeanors, minor crimes. They still were fingerprinted and booked, so the records are there. The complaint I’ve heard is that the minor violators are getting caught up with the major violators.”

The Sun Sentinel reports that of the deported 5,964 individuals with no known criminal records,  4,541 had refused to leave the United States after a prior order of removal or had re-entered the country after being deported. The other 1,423 individuals had entered the country illegally or overstayed their visas, according to figures from ICE.

Immigration activists in Florida have protested the deportations by demonstrating outside detention centers. Many activists are imploring President Barack Obama to use executive powers to halt deportations. Florida’s hospitality, agriculture, and construction industries have suffered due uncertainty in workers’ availability.

“It’s just such a crucial issue for so many hospitality workers in Central Florida,” Jeremy Cruz-Haicken, a local union president in Orlando, told the Sentinel. “The industry is run largely by an immigrant workforce. And so many people live in fear, and their families live in fear. It just creates such instability in the region.”

 Lawmakers and groups who oppose immigration reform complain that current laws are not being adequately enforced. “There are people who have crossed our borders, and we have no background on them whatsoever,” said Bill Landes of Lake Wales, a board member of Floridians for Immigration Enforcement. “If they are arrested and are here illegally, they should be deported as soon as possible. We can’t continue taking in massive numbers of people every year and then allow an amnesty to those who sneaked into this country.”