Law Enforcement, Obama Seek Fewer ICE Raids, More Deported Criminals
Posted on | November 16, 2009 | No Comments
The nation’s sheriffs, police chiefs, and other law enforcement leaders are beginning to speak out in support of comprehensive immigration reform and against the single-minded focus on catching illegal immigrants trying to earn money for their families. Police departments in Las Vegas, Nevada and elsewhere in the country have declined the opportunity to take on the federal duty of putting illegal aliens in detention, choosing instead to focus on strategies to fight crime and address the problems that most trouble their communities.
An article from the New American Media describes the pragmatic attitude toward immigration reform among more and more law enforcement agencies. When they act as extensions of the federal ICE agency, local cops end up diverting scarce resources from preventing and investigating violent crime while also losing the trust and cooperation of the immigrant community that is often vital to stopping gangs and solving crimes. It is a lose-lose for law the police, and they are calling for real immigration reform to help them recalibrate their focus to serve their community’s real needs.
At the same time, the federal government is taking steps to reprioritize as well. The Obama Administration has embraced and revived a program called Secure Communities, which was started under the Bush Administration and aimed to prioritize the deportation of immigrants convicted of violent or serious crimes. According to the New York Times, federal officials have detained about 111,000 immigrants who have criminal records; about ten percent of these have been convicted of crimes like rape and murder, and just under one-fifth of those convicted have already been deported. Of the other 100,000 immigrants with criminal histories, fourteen percent have been deported.
Illegal aliens can be deported at any time for the violation known as unlawful presence; generally they are only placed in deportation proceedings when they are arrested in a workplace raid or for a traffic violation or other crime. Lawful permanent residents can lose their Green Card and be subject to deportation if they commit certain serious criminal offenses.
The Secure Communities program is a step in the right direction, in that it seeks to focus deportation resources on excising dangerous and unproductive elements from our society. But critics point out two problems. First, the program does not do a good job of prioritizing the deportation of serious criminals over that of minor criminals. From the above data, we can conclude that an illegal alien convicted of driving without a license is about as likely to be deported as a rapist immigrant. Secure Communities would better secure our communities by focusing as many resources as possible on deporting threats to society, sparing from penalty those who are simply pursuing better economic opportunities.
The second issue critics take with Secure Communities is that it tries to bridge criminal and immigration databases, sometimes with serious mistakes in cross-referencing. According to ICE data, nearly 6,000 of those identified as both criminals and deportable immigrants were actually U.S. citizens. Hopefully these errors are minimized by the time Secure Communities is adopted by Nevada law enforcement.
If you have questions about how your criminal record affects your immigration status, if you are concerned about being arrested in a workplace raid, or if you have any other immigration questions, please call us today for a free consultation.
Tags: Citizenship > Deportation > Detention > Green Card > ICE Enforcement > Illegal Aliens > Immigration Attorney > Immigration Court > Immigration Lawyer > Immigration Reform > La Migra > Nevada-Las Vegas > Permanent Resident > Undocumented
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