ICEs Secure Communities Program in Massachusetts

S-COMMICEs Secure Communities Program in MassachusettsContact: Laura Rtolo, Staff Attorney(617) 482-3170 x311lrotolo@aclum.orgMay, 2012

1BackgroundGoal: increase deportations

S-Comm is just a new program in ICEs ongoing campaign to deport hundreds of thousands of non-citizens from the United States.

Since the creation of DHS and ICE in 2003, the goal has been to increase the number of people who are deported every year.

And in fact, those number have been steadily on the ride. 2

As you can see, increased enforcement has led to increased deportations even in the Obama administration.

Source: www.ice.gov/doclib/about/offices/ero/pdf/ero-removals1.pdf

Where the Bush administration deported a record 369,000 people in FY 2008, the Obama administration has broken all the records deporting over one million people since coming to office.

Source: http://trac.syr.edu/immigration/reports/234/ and http://www.latimes.com/sc-dc-1007-deportations-20101006,0,7346639.story. 3BackgroundGoal: increase deportations

287(g) agreements allowed local police to enforce immigration laws

In order to keep up with these numbers, ICE has had to develop new programs and strategies.

Despite its more than $5.7 billion budget, ICE cannot be in every city or town across the United States. So they have to rely on local law enforcement to help them find people who may be deportable.

Under a section 287(g) of the Immigration and Nationality Act, ICE has the authority to train and deputize local LEO to carry out the functions of a federal immigration officer.

Starting in 2002, ICE began signing these so-called 287(g) agreements with police forces all over the country.

They were designed to pick up deportatble people at the local level.

The agreements came under heavy scrutiny because they were leading to racial profiling and undermining local policing efforts. In other words .4

In January of 2009, the government did its own review of the agreements and found many problems with them.

The Government Accountability Office found that the program was not implemented well different jurisdictions had different agreements and there were varying perceptions of what the local LEOs had authority to do. For example, even though the program was meant to address serious criminal activity, some local agencies were using their 287(g) authority to deport people who had committed minor crimes, such as carrying an open contained of alcohol.

When Janet Napolitano became the secretary of DHS, ICE began to rewrite and renegotiate the agreements.

By then the criticism had become so strong that many localities including two in Massachusetts decided to cancel their 287(g) contract.

So, ICE had to rethink how it was going to get information from cities and towns.

Thats where S-Comm comes in. They said, OK Fine, we wont deputize your people to do our job, but instead, just give us all your arrest information. And thats the premise behind S-Comm. Its essentially a data-sharing agreement where every time a person is arrested at the local level, that information gets sent to ICE.

5arrestHOW S-COMM WORKS

6S Comm is a data-sharing program between cities or states and the federal immigration agency known as ICE. \arrest

HOW S-COMM WORKS

7arrest

CRIMINALPROCESS HOW S-COMM WORKS

FBI

8arrest

CRIMINALPROCESS HOW S-COMM WORKS

FBI

9arrest

CRIMINALPROCESS ICEHOW S-COMM WORKS

FBI

10arrest

CRIMINALPROCESS ICEIDENT DatabaseHOW S-COMM WORKS

FBI

11arrest

CRIMINALPROCESS ICEIDENT DatabaseHOW S-COMM WORKS

FBI

12arrest

CRIMINALPROCESS ICEno action but ICE retains fingerprints

IDENT DatabaseHOW S-COMM WORKS

FBI

13arrest

CRIMINALPROCESS ICEno action but ICE retains fingerprints

detentionIDENT DatabaseHOW S-COMM WORKS

FBI

14arrest

CRIMINALPROCESS ICEno action but ICE retains fingerprints

detentiondeportationIDENT DatabaseHOW S-COMM WORKS

FBI

15arrest

CRIMINALPROCESS ICEno action but ICE retains fingerprints

detentiondeportationIDENT DatabaseNATIONAL NUMBERS 2008-PRESENT

FBI

15,382,805883,270182,896

16Source: ICE IDENT/IAFIS Interoperability, Monthly Statistics through March 31, 2012, http://www.ice.gov/doclib/foia/sc-stats/nationwide_interop_stats-fy2012-to-date.pdf

arrest

CRIMINALPROCESS ICEno action but ICE retains fingerprints

detentiondeportationIDENT DatabaseNUMBERS FROM BOSTON 2008-PRESENT

FBI

60,5833,967457

17Source: ICE IDENT/IAFIS Interoperability, Monthly Statistics through March 31, 2012, http://www.ice.gov/doclib/foia/sc-stats/nationwide_interop_stats-fy2012-to-date.pdf

S-Comm Stated Priorities

prioritize the identification and removal of aliens convicted of a crime by the severity of that crime

----Level 1 - convicted of two or more felonies or one aggravated felony (as defined by ICE)Level 2 convicted of one felony or three or more misdemeanorsLevel 3 other misdemeanor convictions

18Reality: National DeportationsOctober 2008 March 31, 2012

19Source: ICE IDENT/IAFIS Interoperability, Monthly Statistics through March 31, 2012, http://www.ice.gov/doclib/foia/sc-stats/nationwide_interop_stats-fy2012-to-date.pdf

Deportations from BostonNovember 2008 March 31, 2012

20Source: ICE IDENT/IAFIS Interoperability, Monthly Statistics through March 31, 2012, http://www.ice.gov/doclib/foia/sc-stats/nationwide_interop_stats-fy2012-to-date.pdf Deployment of S-Comm2006: Pilot in Boston2008: Memo. of Agreement with statesAug. 17, 2010: procedure for opt-outOctober 2010: Janet Napolitano says that municipalities cant opt-out if state has opted-in2011: ICE goes back on its promise; cancels all MOAs and begins to roll out program2012: S-Comm activated in Massachusetts

21Costs to the Community No notice to the public or debate by publicly-elected officials before implementation.

Relies on the creation of huge databases with no oversight or audit mechanism and much flawed information.

Opens the door to racial profiling.

Feeds into a broken detention system. Undermines community trust in police.

Costs municipalities money and resources 48 hour detention.

22www.aclum.org

www.aclum.org/s-comm/

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