Colorado to use Secure Communities Program

Earlier this week 9News in Denver reported that Colorado Governor, Bill Ritter, signed a memorandum of understanding with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to begin using the program Secure Communities. Secure Communities allows local law enforcement agencies to run the fingerprints of alleged criminals through state and federal websites to check their immigration status.

Congress set aside $1.4 billion to expand Secure Communities and ICE hopes to have it operating in every jail in the country by 2013. Thirty-five other states are currently participating in the program, as well.

To read the full story, please visit http://www.9news.com/news/local/article.aspx?storyid=173517&catid=222

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Local Governments Cannot Opt Out of the “Secure Communities” Program

“Secure Communities” is Immigration & Customs Enforcement’s “comprehensive strategy to improve and modernize the identification and removal of criminal aliens from the United States.” Put into practice, when a person is arrested and routinely fingerprinted, even for a something as routine as a traffic infraction, their fingerprint check is run against a database maintained by the Department of Homeland Security. The goal is to discover if that individual has any immigration violations as well, and if so they are often turned over to the custody of ICE. Some communities, including Arlington County, Virginia, Washington, D.C., and Santa Clara County in California, have voted to opt out of participating in the Secure Communities program. Officials cite that the program can lead to racial profiling. However, because the agreement is between the federal government and state governments, not the local governments, ICE announced last Friday that local leadership cannot opt out of participation. ICE director John Morton announced that he would meet with local leaders to discuss this issue if they wished.


Read more:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/10/08/AR2010100805657.html

http://www.ice.gov/secure_communities/

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Secure Communities Program goes Statewide in Texas

It was announced today that the federal program, Secure Communities, which automatically checks the immigration status of arrested individuals upon fingerprinting, is being implemented statewide in Texas. While many local jails have used the Secure Communities program for years, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) reported that the program is now active in all 254 counties in Texas. ICE report that the use of this program has resulted in more than 41,000 deportations of illegal immigrants nationwide.

To read the complete article, please visit http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metropolitan/7223407.html

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