Secure Communities Not Performing Stated Objective

Secure Communities relies on local law enforcement agencies to share their arrest data with Immigration and Customs Enforcement to apprehend undocumented immigrants. After an arrest, an inmate's fingerprints are scanned and sent to a database of state, FBI, and immigration records. ICE matches the fingerprints with those in its own database; when it finds a match, it issues a detainer and moves the inmate from criminal to immigration custody.

The stated goal of Secure Communities is to allow ICE to prevent undocumented immigrants with serious criminal records from being released from jails. Since 2008, Secure Communities has led to the removal of 47,000 people.

Despite the purported objective of Secure Communities, government data shows 12,293 people deported as a result of the program were considered non-criminals. And others were picked up for low-level offenses such as driving without a license. Because the program fails to focus exclusively on high-level offenders, critics say that Secure Communities simultaneously encourages police to arrest people who have not committed a crime to check their immigration status and discourages immigrants from reporting criminal activity.

Read PBS's article on Secure Communities here: http://www.pbs.org/wnet/need-to-know/security/video-immigration-crackdown-creates-insecure-communities/2964/

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