Today, in a letter to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Director John Morton, more than 200 civil rights organization, law enforcement officials, and faith leaders from across the country, including ICIRR and 11 other signers from Illinois, joined to raise strong concerns regarding the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) newly-established advisory committee on ICE’s controversial “Secure Communities” program. The following is a statement by the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights (ICIRR):
In an attempt to salvage its controversial and tarnished “Secure Communities” program, DHS has created an advisory committee charged with developing recommendations for reforms. In our letter to ICE Director John Morton, ICIRR and the other signers join in expressing grave doubts regarding whether this committee process will result in real reform:
· The committee was created with no public input, includes no representatives from affected immigrant communities, and lacks any other accountability or transparency.
· The committee’s charge, to the extent it is defined, appears limited to only considering how to handle individuals convicted of traffic offenses—far from the “serious convicted criminals” the program had been intended to target.
· The committee is operating on a 45-day timeline—far too little time to give serious consideration to the flaws in the program.
· Finally, the committee has no direct authority to make changes. Instead, the committee is advising a DHS task force that in turn is advising DHS leadership.
“Secure Communities” has already revealed itself to be deeply flawed. Even though the program had been funded to identify and deport serious convicted criminals, 60% of all individuals deported under this program nationwide either have no criminal convictions or have been convicted of only misdemeanors. Meanwhile, as the letter to Morton notes, “by relying on local police to enforce immigration laws against the very communities they are charged with protecting, Secure Communities is sending a clear message to members of the immigrant community that any contact with the police could lead to their deportation.” Law enforcement agencies are distracted, public safety is undermined, and families are torn apart.
Seeing these flaws, Illinois Governor Pat Quinn withdrew the state from Secure Communities on May 4, with Massachusetts and New York following suit and California considering legislation to modify its agreement with ICE. Nearly a dozen local jurisdictions across the country have tried to opt out. The Congressional Hispanic Caucus has called on the Obama Administration to suspend the program. In May, Congresswoman Zoe Lofgren demanded an investigation into “Secure Communities,” stating: “It is inescapable that DHS was not honest with local governments or with me.” And earlier this month, a federal judge rejected ICE’s efforts to withhold documents revealing information about “Secure Communities,” concluding that “[t]here is ample evidence that ICE and DHS have gone out of their way to mislead the public about Secure Communities.”
ICIRR joins more than the 200 other signers to the letter in calling for ICE to immediately halt the “Secure Communities” program in order to meaningfully address the complaints against the program. ICIRR also renews its call on the Obama Administration to stop cruel deportations of students, enable immigrant families to stay together, and work to win immigration reform.
For a copy of the letter to ICE Director John Morton, please visit: http://www.thenyic.org/Letter-to-Morton/SComm/7-20-11
The Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights is a statewide coalition of 138 organizations dedicated to promoting the rights of immigrants and refugees to full and equal participation in the civic, cultural, social, and political life of our diverse society.