America's Voice Blog

Posted 08/24/11 at 03:48pm By Mahwish Khan

How Secure Communities, ICE and Border Patrol Undermine Public Safety

Safety First Secure CommunitiesLocal and national immigration experts spoke on a call with reporters to relate stories and highlight concerns that Secure Communities and other police-immigration collaboration efforts are destroying the relationship between police and immigrants and making communities across the country less safe.  The federal Secure Communities (S-Comm) program has come under fire from law enforcement, elected officials, and immigrant advocates from across the country for its lack of focus and dangerous impacts on community security.  

As we reported earlier today, the Arlington, Virginia community is scheduled to speak out tonight about this damaging program in the final field hearing of Department of Homeland Security Secure Communities Task Force.  The Task Force is a non-governmental body convened by DHS to examine the program and make recommendations to improve it. 

During the press call, America’s Voice Education Fund (AVEF) released a new report, “Public Safety on ICE: How Do You Police a Community That Won’t Talk to You?”, documenting how immigration enforcement by local police creates a “chilling effect” in immigrant communities, making victims and witnesses of crimes afraid to get help from cops who might deport them. The report includes cases from community advocates and law enforcement officials, demonstrating that the “chilling effect” is being felt in communities around the country as a result of Secure Communities and other policies that blur the distinction between local police and federal immigration agents. Here's one example that Flequer J. Vera-Olcese from the AMOS Project in Cincinnati, Ohio, shared of a recent case.  The example illustrates how pervasive the fear of police is in immigrant communities: 

Fifteen year-old Laura, an undocumented immigrant from Mexico and a special-needs child, was kidnapped and raped.  When Laura turned up missing, her parents were afraid to go immediately to the police and instead investigated on their own.  After several days they found Laura, and her mother took her to the police so she could report what had happened.  More than a month later, the family remains afraid of following-up with the police, seesawing through a mix of emotions.  While they want justice for their daughter, they also fear that multiple contacts with the police could lead to the entire family’s deportation.:

Criminals should be afraid of the police. Immigrants should NOT be.  Programs that involve state and local police in immigration enforcement—like S-Comm and 287(g)—are destroying the relationship between police and the immigrant community.  These programs violate the core principles of community policing because they make immigrants afraid of having any contact with the police.  This means immigrants are less likely to report crimes, more criminals go free, and entire communities are less safe. (For more on this, read Lynn Tramonte's blog post, "'Secure Communities' Leads to Insecure Communities".)

Enforcing our point, Alexsa Alonzo, Associate Director of Advocacy for the American Immigration Lawyers Association, said:

Using local law enforcement efforts as a gateway to immigration enforcement erodes immigrant communities’ trust in the police and local governments and makes us less safe.  Police are perceived as no longer just protecting public safety but also as enforcing immigration law.

“Fear of police in immigrant communities along the U.S.-Canada border is palpable and only heightened by Border Patrol’s increased collaboration with local law enforcement,” said OneAmerica Policy Director, Ada Williams Prince. “Put simply, immigrants stop calling the police during emergencies when they know that Border Patrol will follow close behind.”
 
The call also featured Marisa Vertrees, Social Justice Coordinator of St. Charles Borromeo Catholic Church in Arlington, who has been working with members of the community to prepare for tonight’s Task Force hearing.  Like earlier field hearings in Dallas, TX; Los Angeles, CA; and Chicago, IL, the Arlington hearing will no doubt demonstrate the level of frustration and fear that Secure Communities has caused in immigrant communities.  Arlington County has been trying to opt-out of the program, but has been unable to do so because of the federal government’s mandate that all cities and states participate.
 
According to Vertrees: “Through our work with the immigrant community, we in the faith community have seen the harm that local enforcement does to the community.  Tonight at the hearing we will bring forward the stories we have heard from families who have been torn apart by overly aggressive enforcement programs, as well as immigrants, both documented and not, who are now afraid to deal with the police and are forced to live in the shadows. And because for the first and only time translation services will be available at the hearing, the Task Force will have the chance to hear these stories from the immigrant community themselves.  We hope that bringing forward what we have seen will convince the administration to end the deeply flawed Secure Communities program.”

Posted 08/10/11 at 12:47pm By Van Le

ICE Investigation Clears Agents of Wrongdoing; Reveals Agents “Guided” - Not Shoved - Man Into Wall

ice abuse case michiganA mother strip-searched in front of her teenage son; parents stalked by immigration officials outside of their children’s elementary school; a man shoved into a wall so hard that the plaster cracks; and a pregnant woman denied medication.

Troubling signs of potential police misconduct?  Apparently not to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

Frequent readers of this blog may recall that earlier this year, after Michigan activists called attention to a disturbing trend of abuse, ICE Director John Morton promised his agency would conduct a systematic review of the Detroit field office’s enforcement practices. Among the cases in question: a raid at Hope of Detroit Elementary school where some parents were arrested on the street while others were trapped inside with their frightened children, several instances of ICE detaining and interrogating U.S. citizens, and one example of a pregnant detainee denied access to doctors, nutritious food, and medicine.

Morton’s overdue report has finally been released, and in a blatant case of who-will-watch-the-watchers, ICE’s internal investigation has cleared all its agents of any wrongdoing.  That is, it’s saying that none of its agents in any of these cases overstepped whatsoever.  The conflict of interest, the cover-up, and the lack of concern for justice are astounding. 

“ICE’s failed investigation is what happens when the fox is charged with watching the hen house,” Art Reyes, a member of the Hispanic and Latino Commission of Michigan, said last week.

Click here to read more.
Posted 08/02/11 at 08:53am By Mahwish Khan

Rally in Chicago Today to Support Andy Mathe’s Family

Mathe Family Deportation PosterBy Sofia Navas-Sharry:

Today, there's a rally in Chicago to support Hope Karekezi and her family. From FIRM:

Hope Karekezi fled Rwanda in 2007 with her mother and three children, seeking refuge due to death threats she received from radical South Africans, who have had a long-time grudge against Hope’s husband and father-in-law, who were affiliated with the Rwandan army in the 1990’s when the country was facing genocide. America was the hope for Hope.

She and her family came to the United States to flee the madness (and extremists) that stalked them every day to live a more prosperous life. They sought asylum and made a request for deferred action, but were denied. Hope’s son, Andy Mathe, was arrested and detained by ICE for theft charges that were eventually dropped.

On Tuesday, July 26th, Andy was deported back to the country he and his family had escaped four years ago. The day before this happened, President Obama was personally handed a petition with 5,000 signatures to stop Andy’s deportation. He was told, “if you really care about our community, then do something for this family.” The President had a choice to help a man in desperate need, and unfortunately, that did not happen. Andy is now in hiding with missionaries in South Africa, but longs to be with his family again, whom he hasn’t seen in over 85 days.

Hope is going to a check-in at the Chicago ICE Agency today, August 2nd. This could possibly mean deportation back to a country that wants them dead for the entire family. There is going to be a rally from 11 am - 2 pm CT outside of the ICE Headquarters. The address is 101 W Congress Parkway, Chicago, IL (on the corner of W Congress Pkwy and S Clark St.) Click here for details and to show your encouragement for the Mathe family.

If you are in the Chicago area while this is happening, please go and show your support for this family who so desperately needs it.

Posted 07/13/11 at 09:15am By Web Team

Washington DREAMer Alberto Yanez Issued a One Year Stay of Deportation

Alberto YanezBy Sofia Navas-Sharry:

The battle to stop Alberto Yanez’s deportation is far from over, but at least it has been delayed for another year.

Alberto Yanez -- father of three American citizens, brother of two American citizens, and a passionate DREAMer -- saw major breakthrough when he was granted a one year stay of deportation through January of next year. This is a result of thousands of people calling on the Obama Administration to stop his deportation, as well as a change.org petition that received over 2,500 signatures.

Alberto has been here for 23 years, arriving when he was one, and has proven himself a bright and talented person. He was placed in the gifted program when he was in the third grade, and worked full-time while pursuing a degree. He is now working on becoming a pharmacy technician, and is a loving father to three American children.

It is largely in thanks to the support of his community and advocates (like you!) that he was given this temporary stay.  This is undoubtedly a small victory in his much larger battle to stay in the only country he's ever known since he first arrived in California as a toddler, but his fight is long from over. Alberto and his mother are still at risk of being torn apart from each other, their family, and friends -- as is the case with countless other DREAMers.

A few weeks ago, ICE Director John Morton sent out a Prosecutorial Discretion memo regarding the agency’s enforcement priorities, which outlined various factors that ICE agents should take into account when handling individual deportation cases. The memo also explicitly mentions that ICE should decide if an individual should be deported only if he or she fits enforcement priorities.

Yanez does not fit those enforcement priorities. Alberto, who came to the country as an infant, has no criminal record and poses no threat to our national security. By no means does he meet any of the "deportation criteria" outlined in the Morton memo.

But we'd be giving ICE too much credit if we thought at all that the agency had its priorities straight. When ICE agents aren't stalking kids and their parents at elementary schools, or strip-searching a mother in front of her son, or denying a six month pregnant woman medical care, they're trying to deport undocumented Americans, such as Alberto, to countries they barely know, draining our society of talented individuals whose only wish is to give back to the country that they consider home.

Posted 06/22/11 at 02:17pm By Van Le

ICE Agents Raid Strawberry Festival and Arrest Two Fathers in Front of Children

strawberry days festival

Outrageous news out of Glenwood Springs, Colorado today.  From the Colorado Immigrant Rights Coalition:

The Strawberry Days Festival in Glenwood Springs is usually remembered as a treasured summer family event. This year, some children will also remember it as the day their family was ripped apart by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

As the Alvarez family was waiting for their children to come out of the Bouncy Castle, they were approached by a couple of Garfield County Sheriffs deputies who led the men away behind the carnival rides. While there, 2 plainclothes ICE agents approached, checked, and detained both men. Brothers Cesar and Julio Alvarez were then taken to an ICE van in the back of the fair, while their 4 children waited with their aunt and mother.
 
Lorenza Alvarez, Julio’s 7-months pregnant, US born wife, came looking for her husband and her brother-in-law and was treated poorly by agents as she explained that Cesar was the only caretaker of twin 11-year-old girls. Following an extended conversation, Cesar was released but Julio was taken away for processing at an ICE detention center in Glenwood Springs. The stress was almost too much for the pregnant Mrs. Alvarez, and she had to be taken to Valley View Hospital for emergency care.
 
Teaming up with the Garfield County Sheriff’s Department, undercover ICE agents conducted this dragnet operation at a family fair on Father’s Day, in violation of their own operating regulations – which call on them to “refrain from conducting enforcement actions or investigative activities at or near sensitive community locations, such as schools, places of worship... and venues generally where children and their families may be present.”

A team of agents from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement reportedly swept through a corner of the Strawberry Days festivities on Saturday, rounding up two or possibly three suspects.
According to Glenwood Springs attorney Karen McCarthy, the ICE agents picked up at least two people, including Julio Alvarez, 30, and his brother, Cesar Alvarez, 33, at the carnival in West Glenwood.
According to the wife of Julio Alvarez, Lorenza Alvarez, who is seven months' pregnant, the agents released her brother-in-law, Cesar Alvarez, because he is a single father of twin 11-year-old girls.
 
Julio, who is stepfather to two young children, was detained and is “likely to be deported” back to Mexico, his home country, McCarthy said. […]
 
McCarthy, who often works on immigration issues, said she has heard that the agents arrested at least three people, and that agents were spotted chasing one man through the carnival area on Saturday.
Lorenza Alvarez, who said she witnessed the ICE agents take her husband and his brother, said the three were standing in the carnival grounds when they were approached.
“We weren't doing anything wrong. We were waiting for the kids to get off the rides,” said Alvarez, who said she was born in Aspen.
She said two Garfield County deputies walked up, took Julio and Cesar by the arm, and lead them away behind the funhouse. 
“Immigration was waiting there for them,” she said. “They said they singled them out because of the way they were dressed.”
Click here to read more.
Posted 06/17/11 at 05:34pm By Lynn Tramonte

ICE Recognizes Secure Communities is Flawed

Ice AgentsICE Director John Morton has repeatedly said that he believes federal immigration enforcement should focus on the ‘worst of the worst,’ yet the policies and practices of his agency have repeatedly failed to meet that standard.  The program known as Secure Communities, which involves state and local police in identifying immigrants for deportation, provides one of the starkest examples.  Secure Communities was supposed to focus on dangerous convicted criminals, but has actually swept up thousands of non-criminal immigrants and hurt the relationship between local police and the immigrant community. 

Today’s announcement shows that concerns about the program’s failures have finally penetrated the DHS bureaucracy in Washington.  When law enforcement leaders and advocates for crime victims are speaking out against a ‘law enforcement’ proposal, something is wrong.

Click here to read more.
Posted 05/06/11 at 03:11pm By Mahwish Khan

Department of Homeland Security Intends to Force Illinois’ Participation in Secure Communities

fingerprints In response to Governor Quinn’s (see previous blog post from today) attempt to opt-out of the Secure Communities Program, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is saying “No, actually.  We won’t let you.”  Elise Foley at the Huffington Post breaks the story:

The Department of Homeland Security will not allow Illinois law enforcement to stop sharing information with immigration enforcement, despite Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn’s request to opt-out of a controversial program, DHS officials confirmed on Thursday.

Quinn (D) announced on Wednesday he intended to withdraw from Secure Communities, an immigration enforcement program that shares fingerprints between the FBI and DHS to detect unauthorized immigrants.

But DHS officials confirmed to The Huffington Post that they will still require the state to share fingerprints with immigration enforcement -- even though Quinn said he wants to terminate a memorandum of understanding with the agency to share the data.

In making this decision, DHS is flouting the state's decision to withdraw from the program in favor of more universal immigration enforcement and likely setting the stage for a lawsuit.

The Illinois case is the latest -- and farthest-reaching -- in a string of confusion and misstatements from DHS over whether Secure Communities participation is voluntary. The program, a staple in the DHS’s efforts to deport record numbers of undocumented immigrants each year, has come under fire from the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, which called for a moratorium on Secure Communities on Thursday.

Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.) and Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) called last week for an investigation into Secure Communities to determine whether DHS willfully deceived the public on the nature of the program.

Bills that would allow local jurisdictions to withdraw from Secure Communities, meanwhile, arecurrently working their way through state legislatures in Illinois and California.

If ICE spent its time getting criminals instead of trying to inflate deportation numbers, we wouldn’t be in this situation -- and DHS knows it. We’ve noted before that Janet Napolitano, DHS Secretary, seems almost proud of her Department’s record deportation numbers, touting the numbers at Congressional hearings and in media interviews. But if DHS continues to force police departments to participate in this nefarious program, they're doing so at the peril of making Americans a little more unsafe – all in an attempt to fill their deportation quotas. 

Posted 05/05/11 at 09:08am By Van Le

ICE Agents’ Union Denies Any Wrongdoing In Detroit School Raid

detroit hope academyThe morning of March 31 started out like most others, with parents driving their children to school and Ali Abdel, the principal of Hope of Detroit Academy, watching over the morning safety patrol.

Chaos, however, was lurking behind the scenes, in the form of Detroit ICE agents who had tailed several parents from their homes to the school.  Violating an internal policy that refrains from enforcement actions near “sensitive community locations” such as schools, places of worship, and funerals, agents swooped in and arrested some immigrant parents on the street, while trapping others inside the school with their young children.

The case was so egregious that John Morton, the highest official at ICE, came to Detroit last month to meet with community leaders about whether the agency had overstepped its bounds.  And when Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-IL) passed through town as part of his “Change Takes Courage” tour, he spent time discussing the event and listening to testimony about it.

Yet now, a new story from NPR quotes the National ICE Council—the union that represents immigration agents—as saying that the school raid didn’t happen at all.  From National ICE Council Chris Crane:   

"[ICE] made a statement before they even asked one single officer about anything that took place that day," he says.

Crane also says agents kept their distance from the school, and never even got out of their vehicles. He accuses critics of fear-mongering, saying, "it's the statements of some of these political leaders that are really creating the fear in the communities, the fear across the nation now that ICE agents are these terrible people doing terrible things to immigrants, when that's just not the case."

Fear-mongering, oh really?  Is that how Crane wants to dismiss the testimony of all the parents who had to hide inside Hope Academy, who were too terrified in the days and weeks afterward to send their kids back to school?  As the school’s principal told NPR:

"Kids weren't focused on their work, parents were not bringing their kids to school out of fear. And this is no place where children feel like that. They should feel like they're safe, and parents should feel that their kids are safe here at school."

Is that how he wants to dismiss the hundreds of stories about ICE wrongdoings that were brought up at Gutierrez’s Detroit rally?  The Hope of Detroit incident was hardly isolated—other victims have spoken up about being strip-searched in front of their children and shoved through walls.  One US citizen was shackled after ICE agents refused to accept his identification, while a six-month pregnant woman was refused medical care.

ICE—and John Morton—have been correct in looking into the Hope of Detroit incident and the other abuses.  With such a history of concentrated, heavy-handed treatment of immigrants, ICE’s record in Detroit is just too much to dismiss out of hand.

Posted 04/19/11 at 01:44pm By Van Le

AMC Channel to Launch Reality Show Starring the DHS, Including ICE, This Fall

body scanMove over, Jersey Shore. 

AMC has announced that it will be launching a new reality show this fall, Inside DHS, based on the inner workings and daily toils of the Department of Homeland Security.  That’s right, the people at Department of Homeland Security, the same people who are responsible for over-scanning your grandmother and frisking six year olds, are now getting their own show.

According to AMC’s head of original programming Joel Stillerman:

This is not about presenting an expose, but to celebrate an absolutely massive effort that goes on day to day to keep us safe…It’s a huge coup for us to be able to launch our (unscripted) initiative with a show like this.  We try to do programming that is inherently dramatic and culturally relevant, and it’s not always easy to find projects where those two things overlap so clearly.

Billed as "the real story of the day-to-day battle to keep us safe, prepared, and resilient," the series is expected to cross an examination of the bureaucracy’s inner workings with COPS-like field segments on border security and immigration enforcement. 

From Wired:

Expect a nailbiter about the realities of the security bureaucracy, where agency science officials weigh the pros and cons of surveillance drones for safeguarding big public events; debate doling out grant money for bomb sniffing plants; and — in the key reveal — sign Memoranda of Understanding with the Defense Department for protecting the civilian internet from cyberattack.

Click here to read more.
Posted 04/18/11 at 02:01pm By Van Le

Rep. Gutierrez Taking “Change Takes Courage” To Detroit Tonight

congressman luis gutierrezAfter stops in Boston, Providence, and Chicago, Congressman Luis Gutierrez (D-IL) is taking his 20-city “Change Takes Courage” tour to Detroit, home to the recent ICE incidents involving agents stalking elementary schools and strip-searching mothers.

Gutierrez and various grassroots activists launched the “Change Takes Courage” tour late last month, asking President Obama to use executive powers to provide immigrants relief.  From Gutierrez’s remarks at the kickoff press conference: 

We have not come here to ask the president to sign an executive order somehow relieving these families from being deported; we have not come here to ask for Temporary Protected Status.  We understand he has the responsibility and obligation to enforce the law.  We're asking him to use the discretion that he has to implement the law so that American citizen families can stay together…

Since then, Gutierrez and other advocates have been traveling around to different US cities, meeting in faith-based institutions and sharing stories about families split apart by current immigration policies.  They hope to prompt the president into addressing the issue before the 2012 elections.

In Detroit tonight, Gutierrez is expected to address the recent incident at Hope of Detroit Academy, an elementary school where ICE agents grossly violated internal policies by following undocumented immigrant parents from their homes to the school, arresting some parents on the street while trapping others inside the academy.  Community leaders met with ICE official John Morton to discuss the abuses last week; Morton has 30 days to review the cases before a second meeting.

Gutierrez drew attention over the weekend when he told supporters in Chicago—site of Obama’s reelection headquarters—that he was unsure whether he would be able to support the president’s reelection if Obama did not address current immigration policies.

Click here to read more.

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