Secure Communities On The Block
09/15/2011
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The chopping block. The fix was in on the committee that John Morton appointed to look at the PR problem Secure Communities was having. Most in ICE management and the Obama Regime want an end to Secure Communities, limiting it to dealing with aliens with serious felony convictions rather than ferreting out other types of illegal aliens.

The long knives were out early for Secure Communities, as exposed by Chris Crane, President, National Immigration and Customs Enforcement Council 118, of the American Federation of Government Employees in testimony to Congress, [PDF]who was the sole representative with any knowledge of ICE and legacy INS policy, procedure, and practice in the identification, arrest, and removal of aliens. Crane testified that 

“A Homeland Security Advisory Committee on the ICE Secure Communities Program was formed with each member selected by ICE Director John Morton. Approximately 50% of the committee's members appear to be immigrant's advocates and/or attorneys representing immigrants at some level. In comparison, not one member of the committee is a public advocate for reforms through stronger immigration enforcement. Some of the other members, while not identified as advocates themselves, do not oppose the majority of the positions advanced by advocates on the committee, creating a committee with little diversity on significant issues. I am the only member of the committee who is an immigration agent and has a technical understanding of the ICE programs under review; I am accompanied by a union representative who is an ICE attorney by profession. For the most part, our combined concerns are not heard within the committee...

While I have a deep respect for the committee's members, it appears that the process of selecting members by ICE and DHS has led to a lack of appropriate balance of viewpoints and knowledge of ICE operations also needed on the committee. It is my opinion, that the findings or recommendations made by the Homeland Security Committee on Secure Communities, of which I am a member, should not be considered for the purpose of modifying any ICE law enforcement policy, practice or procedure. It is my opinion that immediate oversight of this committee is required to provide balance and integrity to the process.”

The warning signs were evident, as exposed here by your bureaucratic Cassandra; ignored and prophetic, as the report has been written and Secure Communities is to be gelded.

Of course, ICE did mislead both the public and local law enforcement by claiming the program was voluntary, but it also misled agencies with the belief that ICE would be arresting the illegal aliens in question, but more often than not, ICE would not pick up the illegals reported by Secure Communities or directly to their Law Enforcement Support Center.

Deportation Program Draws More Criticism

 By Julia Preston

New York Times September 15, 2011

 A task force advising an Obama administration deportation program has sharply criticized immigration officials for creating “much confusion” with the public about its purposes, and found that the program had an “unintended negative impact” on public safety in local communities.

In a report on the program, known as Secure Communities, the task force said that immigration officials had eroded public trust with conflicting statements about what immigrants were being singled out for deportation and whether states and cities were required to participate. The New York Times obtained a copy of the task force’s report, which was completed on Wednesday.

In the most significant of its recommendations, the task force said that fingerprint identifications through the program should no longer lead federal agents to detain immigrants arrested by local police for minor traffic violations. Secure Communities has been presented by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the federal agency operating it, as aimed at deporting “the worst of the worst” illegal immigrants, those convicted of serious criminal and immigration offenses. [More]”

 

But under the guise of damage to "community policing," as if Democrats ever cared about arresting criminals other than heterosexual white males, Secure Communities will be ended as we know it. No more arrests through Secure Communities of the average illegal alien; DREAMsters, nursing mothers, slave laborers at Chipotle's, etc. Only ax murders and Mullah Omar will be taken into custody by ICE. Despite the claims of Mexican police chiefs, crime will increase as gangbangers are relieved of the pressure of ICE enforcement. Enforcement that even ICE falls down on quite regularly. Quite often to the benefit of criminals like Edwin Ramos, charged with a triple murder in San Francisco, who, according to ICE, was not "the worst of the worst." But he certainly grew into that moniker.

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