After the killing of Osama bin Laden, Barack Obama would like to
establish himself as the new sheriff in town. When it comes to
immigration enforcement, elected officials within the president’s
own party are saying: Not in our town.
San Francisco Sheriff Michael Hennessey
said Friday that he will begin releasing illegal immigrants
locked up in county jail for what he considers low-level crimes
even if federal immigration authorities ask that they be held as
part of the Secure Communities program. The illegal aliens set to
go free have been arrested on such charges as disorderly conduct,
public intoxication, and shoplifting. A spokeswoman for Immigration
and Customs Enforcement (ICE) described Hennessey’s decision as
“unfortunate.”
Of course, San Francisco is a sanctuary city. Hennessey said a
year ago that local and federal immigration enforcement priorities
conflicted, he would comply with the former. It was more surprising
when Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn
announced last week that he was pulling his state out of the
Secure
Communities program entirely. The California state legislature
is considering a bill that would make local cooperation with
federal immigration authorities voluntary.
Secure Communities began as a pilot program during the Bush
administration in 2008. When police in participating communities
book people into jail, they share the fingerprints with ICE just
like they do the FBI. ICE cross-references the prints against
databases it maintains. If there is a match, immigration
authorities can request that the individual be kept in custody up
to 48 hours beyond their scheduled release date. ICE can then grab
them and initiate deportation proceedings.
The program was designed to facilitate the deportation of
criminal aliens in state and local custody. Participation has
exploded from just 14 jurisdictions working with the Department of
Homeland Security (DHS) when it was first rolled out to 1,400 by
early 2011. Secure Communities has become an important part of the
Obama administration’s campaign to appear tough on illegal
immigration, accounting for a significant part of its
much-ballyhooed spike in
deportations.
Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick faced a firestorm of criticism
from civil rights and immigrant groups for signing on. He has held
what the New York Times describes
as “a series of heavily attended and sometimes raucous meetings on
the program” as he tries to sell Secure Communities to liberal Bay
State residents. In Maryland, Montgomery County considered opting
out before “reluctantly” agreeing to take part.
Liberals are balking because not everyone removed under Secure
Communities has been convicted of a dangerous crime. Some people
are being deported — horrors! — simply for being illegal aliens.
Quinn maintains that, according to ICE statistics, less than 20
percent of the illegal immigrants deported from Illinois have ever
been convicted of a serious crime.
Compounding the problem is confusion over whether participation
is mandatory. Several states have entered into what is called a
Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) with the federal government implying
that their cooperation is voluntary. An August 2010 DHS memo stated
that local governments could request “adjusting the jurisdiction’s
activation date in or removing the jurisdiction from the deployment
plan,” but DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano has been quoted as saying
“Secure Communities is mandatory and will be extended to all
jurisdictions in the country by 2013.” The secretary said “we do
not view this as an opt-in, opt-out program.”
The Congressional Hispanic Caucus has asked the Obama
administration to suspend the program until it can be guaranteed
that garden-variety illegal aliens will not be deported.
Ironically, the administration has not made the deportation of
non-criminal aliens a top enforcement priority. Both Bush and Obama
pushed Secure Communities in part to showcase an enforcement effort
as part of the “comprehensive immigration reform” gambit. The
endgame is still the legalization of most of the illegal immigrants
in the United States.
The same Department of Homeland Security that implements Secure
Communities has repeatedly been caught discussing ways it can use
its powers of administrative discretion to effectively amnesty
subsets of illegal immigrants, such as those who would have benefit
from the DREAM Act voted down by Congress. ICE has been criticized
by customs and border patrol agents for a lack of seriousness about
immigration enforcement. The Obama Justice Department has argued in
federal courts that Arizona’s SB 1070 is unconstitutional in part
because it refers illegals the federal government has decided not
to make it a priority to deport.
Yet even this is too much for some in Obama’s party. New
York Daily News columnist Albor Ruiz
called Secure Communities a “mass deportation program” as he
praised Pat Quinn for pulling Illinois out. Officials in sanctuary
cities are displeased.
Some liberal politicians have finally discovered a federal
program they find too intrusive. And a triangulating president will
have to see if he can keep his base in check on illegal
immigration.
