Secure Communities Program Should Be Terminated
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Dotty Griffith; (713) 942-8416 x 103 or (832) 291-4776; [email protected]
HOUSTON – The ACLU of Texas said today’s announcement by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) of minor modifications to the flawed Secure Communities program (S-Comm) does little to remedy systemic problems.
“S-Comm is flawed beyond repair, said Krystal Gomez, Policy and Advocacy Counsel. “The modifications don’t change that fact that S-Comm is an open invitation to racial profiling. Even with the changes, S-Comm will continue to give police a reason to stop and arrest people who look ‘foreign’.”
S-Comm works by sending arrestee fingerprint data through a federal immigration database, often times leading to deportation proceedings for people who have not been found guilty of any crime. Since the program was launched in 2008, more than one million people have been deported.
Executive Director Terri Burke said, “By its very nature, this program will continue to make our communities less safe by driving a wedge between local police and the community members they are supposed to protect. When undocumented community members are afraid to report a crime it results in the whole community being less safe.”
“While the Department of Homeland Security says this program deports ‘the worst of the worst,’ the fact is that a significant number of the people deported under S-Comm do not have any criminal convictions, and many are in ICE’s lowest priority category,” Gomez added.
Today’s announcement came in response to a September 2011 report on S-Comm from a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Taskforce, which was harshly critical of the program. Several task force members resigned from the task force in protest because the recommendations of the report did not go far enough.
S-Comm has also faced widespread criticism from law enforcement leaders, governors, and community members across the US.
