08/24/11 Local 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.
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08/24/11 In advance of the final DHS Secure Communities Task Force hearing in Arlington Virginia, America's Voice Education Fund (AVEF) will release a new report, "Public Safety on ICE: How Do You Police a Community That Won't Talk to You?" which documents the "chilling effect" that police-DHS collaboration has on immigrant crime victims and witnesses, and describes how programs like Secure Communities (S-Comm) actually make all of us less safe.
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08/22/11 A raucous week of protests against Secure Communities continued last week in Chicago, where protesters angry about deportations rallied outside an immigration hearing. Ten people were eventually arrested by police.
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08/16/11 Criticism of the Obama Administration's Secure Communities deportation program has reached a new apex, as elected officials and law enforcement leaders offer serious rebukes of the program and immigrant communities and newspaper editorial boards call for it to be scrapped altogether. It's also become a major political problem for the Obama administration.
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08/15/11 Boston's Mayor and Police Commissioners were early supporters of the Secured Communities program. But, they've seen first hand that S-Comm is not what it was promised to be. They were misled by DHS, which is deporting non-criminals and disrupting communities while making them less safe. The DHS message to Governors and Mayors is: "We don't want your input — we just want your fingerprints."
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08/11/11 Last week, Immigration, Customs and Enforcement (ICE) created a firestorm when the agency unilaterally ended all of its Memorandum of Agreements (MOA) related to the Secure Communities (S-Comm) program. ICE announced that the program will be mandatory, and it has caused an intense backlash among immigration advocates.
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08/09/11 On Friday, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced that it was terminating all Memoranda of Agreements (MOA) that it had signed with state and local jurisdictions related to the Secure Communities (S-Comm) Program. Now, Immigrant rights activists are outraged about the announcement -- and rightly so.
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08/08/11 On Friday, the Department of Homeland Security unilaterally cancelled its Memorandum of Agreements (MOA) on Secure Communities (S-COMM), an immigration enforcement program of the Obama administration that was sold to state governments as a way to identify and deport serious criminals.
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08/05/11 Remember when we reported that DHS was in cahoots with the FBI re: the Secure Communities (S-Comm) Program, and how S-Comm was a stepping stone for a more invasive program that the FBI is calling their "Next Generation Initiative?"
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07/19/11 A welcome development in the Secure Communities saga: A federal judge in New York has demanded that the feds hand over some "potentially embarrassing" documents relating to the Secure Communities program.
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07/06/11 If you're an immigration news fiend like most of us are over at America's Voice, then you might have wondered at some point why DHS won't let States that are concerned with the Secure Communities program opt out of participating. Or, like Rep. Zoe Lofgren, wonder why DHS said that States could opt out when they can't.
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06/17/11 Today, Immigration and Customs Enforcement announced that it is establishing an advisory board to review the Secure Communities deportation program, and implementing new guidance throughout the field on prosecutorial discretion.
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06/10/11 In a recent meeting with La Opinión's editorial board, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi criticizes the Administration's implementation of the controversial deportation program, "Secure Communities", La Opinión reports:"I understand that this is a program that is designed for a specific purpose, not simply to catch the undocumented but dangerous criminals."
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06/10/11 Massachusetts State Representative Ryan Fattman thinks that if you're an undocumented victim of a crime, you better be afraid to come forward – even if you're an undocumented victim of rape.
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06/08/11 Yesterday, Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick removed his state from the Department of Homeland Security's Secure Communities program. Today, The New York Times used that news as the basis for another very strong editorial urging a new direction for "President Obama's misconceived and failing immigration dragnet."
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06/07/11 Yesterday, Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick (D-MA) announced that his state will not participate in the federal government's failed "Secure Communities" deportation program.
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06/02/11 New York Governor Andrew Cuomo announced yesterday that he is suspending his state's participation in the ineffective Secure Communities deportation program based on concerns over its impact on community policing and public safety.
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06/01/11 Today, Governor Andrew Cuomo (D) announced that New York will "suspend" its participation in the Department of Homeland Security's (DHS) controversial Secure Communities program
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05/27/11 The Secure Communities program has been feeling the heat lately. After Illinois Governor, Pat Quinn, decided to pull out of the program, and Rep. Zoe Lofgren (CA) called for an investigation into questionable ICE practices regarding the program (ie: that DHS lied by saying that communities could opt out when they really couldn't), more officials have been coming out in its opposition.
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05/26/11 Yesterday, law enforcement leaders and elected officials held a telephonic press conference to share their concerns about the Department of Homeland Security's (DHS) Secure Communities Program.
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05/25/11 More bad news today for Arizona's Sheriff Joe Arpaio: following news that he misspent $100 million in taxpayer funds and failed to investigate 400 sex crimes cases, "America's Toughest Sheriff" found himself sporting another black eye yesterday after the arrest of three employees involved in a drug- and human-trafficking ring.
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05/19/11 Texas State Senator Juan "Chuy" Hinojosa (D-McAllen) used a procedural tactic to derail an anti-immigration bill that was moving in that state's legislature. The bill could be brought back, but time is running out. The legislative session ends on May 30th.
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05/13/11 First-term Congressman Lou Barletta (R-PA), in the news lately for creating a House Freshmen Immigration Caucus and proposing a bill that would defund "sanctuary cities," is the focus of a Right Wing Watch article today questioning his ties to Neo-Nazis.
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05/12/11 Earlier this month, a prominent group of immigration attorneys wrote a memo detailing the President's executive authority on immigration related matters. To be blunt, the President's hands aren't tied. In the wake of the President's speech on immigration, editorial boards at major newspapers are calling on the President to use that executive authority. We agree.
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05/06/11 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."
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05/06/11 As the federal government and state legislatures try to expand the role of police in immigration enforcement, state and local police are pushing back. In Texas, Illinois, California, and elsewhere, law enforcement leaders are speaking out against proposals to gut their community policing policies and require them to participate in the Secure Communities program.
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05/03/11 Michael Hennessey, San Francisco's sheriff, has a captivating (and compassionate) piece in the San Francisco Chronicle today, making the case against a much-loved GOP immigration enforcement strategy better know as the Secure Communities Program.
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