Immigration mattersLaw enforcement questions reporting jailed illegal immigrants to feds
Secure Communities, a U.S. program to check the immigration status of everyone booked into jail, runs into local rules against such actions; critics of the program say that turning illegal immigrants over to federal authorities would undermine the efforts of local law enforcement to win cooperation from immigrant communities; they worry about providing immigration authorities with the fingerprints of those arrested on petty charges
Taken into custody by ICE // Source: orlandosentinel.com
Mwenda Murithi, the Kenyan-born leader of a notorious Chicago street gang, was arrested twenty-six times after his student visa was revoked in 2003. Charged with at least four felonies, he served thirty days in the Cook County Jail for a 2007 drug violation. By law, he could have been deported immediately. Chicago officials, however, did not report him to immigration authorities because city and county ordinances prohibit them from doing so.
Not long after he got out of jail, Murithi ordered a gang hit that resulted in the death of 13-year-old Schanna Gayden, struck by a stray bullet as she frolicked at a playground.
The Chicago Tribune’s Ken Dilanian writes that Murithi, now serving fifty-five years, is just the sort of person U.S. immigration officials say they want to target under a program known as Secure Communities, which seeks to match the fingerprints of everyone booked into jail against immigration databases (see “More counties join Secure Communities,” 2 April 2010 HSNW; and “ICE says it will automatically vet juvenile immigrants fingerprints,” 11 May 2010 HSNW).
The program, launched by the Bush administration and continued under President Obama, has become entangled in the suspicions and recriminations that characterize the debate over immigration policy.
Critics of the program say that turning illegal immigrants over to federal authorities would undermine the efforts of local law enforcement to win cooperation from immigrant communities. They worry about providing immigration authorities with the fingerprints of those arrested on petty charges.
“I’ll be reporting minor offenders, misdemeanants, people who are arrested on a traffic fine that they fail to pay,” San Francisco Sheriff Michael Hennessey said. “I think that this throws too broad of a net out over the residents of my county.”
David Venturella, who runs the program for the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency, or ICE, said minor violators are not a priority unless they also have more serious criminal histories. “Our focus is on criminal aliens,” he said.
Dilanian writes that many major city police agencies forbid officers from inquiring into the immigration status of witnesses and suspects, a policy adopted by local officials to shield illegal immigrants from federal authorities. But the Secure Communities program has divided those cities and the politicians within them.
Houston and Los Angeles are participating in the fingerprint sharing program despite such rules, and San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom opposes the efforts of the sheriff and some county supervisors to keep his city
