MARIETTA – A federal immigration program that attempts to check the fingerprints of every inmate in local jails could be getting a financial boost in President Barack Obama’s proposed 2010 fiscal year budget.
The program, Secure Communities, was initiated under President George W. Bush in 2008. As of April, the program is in 48 jurisdictions in seven states. Georgia is not among them.
Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano presented Obama’s proposed FY2010 budget for her agency to Congress on May 13. Included in the $55.1 billion budget is $198 million for Secure Communities, about a 30 percent increase from last year’s budget for Secure Communities. The budget increase could expand the program to more jurisdictions.
“We want to facilitate legal immigration and pursue enforcement against those who violate our country’s immigration laws,” Napolitano said during her presentation. Expanding partnerships with state and local governments is a key component to achieving that goal, she said.
The program aims to check fingerprints of every person booked into a jail in the United State against both the FBI and Immigration and Customs Enforcement databases. Of course, it would thus only catch those who have been previously fingerprinted by U.S. authorities.
It differs from ICE’s 287(g) program by checking fingerprints of all inmates. Under 287(g), jurisdictions only review fingerprints of foreign-born inmates. Also, Secure Communities is essentially a database check, whereas 287(g) involves training local law enforcement for customs enforcement.
According to DHS, since Secure Communities started in October, more than 2,500 people have been removed from the United States.
Rich Pellegrino, director of the Cobb-Cherokee Immigrant Alliance, said he’s not opposed to an enforcement program like Secure Communities, as long as it’s part of a larger comprehensive immigration reform.
“If you’re looking at just enforcement, it never works,” he said. “It drives immigrants more underground and they become more insular. It creates an underground world, and it’s the opposite of what we’re trying to do.”
The more enforcement-focused the government becomes the less likely immigrants are going to try to learn the language, be trusting of police or even turn to organizations like his, Pellegrino said.
“We should be talking about assimilation more than targeting,” Pellegrino said.
Anti-illegal immigration activist D.A. King, founder of the Dustin Inman Society, said continued funding for the program “seems to be a good start.” But he’s not convinced the president is addressing the immigration issue.
“Not many people on the pro-American side of the illegal immigration crisis trust Obama to do the right thing on the invasion,” he said. “We should all acknowledge that all illegal aliens and their employers are, in fact, criminals.”
One concern for King is the intention behind this program.
“If (Secure Communities) is intended to be a method of granting de facto amnesty to illegals who haven’t yet been arrested and jailed, it is merely a sleight-of-hand distraction,” he said.
While the president looks to add funds to one program, King said Obama plans to cut the $400 million State Criminal Alien Assistance Program, which reimburses local jails for housing illegal immigrants. According to the U.S. Department of Justice, Cobb received more than $72,000 from that program in 2008.
Pellegrino said he believes Obama is committed to creating a comprehensive immigration reform program, complete with increased border security, reasonable quotas and wait times for visas and some type of amnesty program.
Since July 2007, the Cobb Sheriff’s office has participated in 287(g) of the Immigration and Nationality Act. Cobb’s Sheriff deputies are trained by ICE and have the authority to identify, investigate and detain illegal immigrants who are booked into the county jail.
In the first quarter of 2009, Cobb sheriff deputies and ICE have interviewed 1,169 foreign-born inmates and placed immigration holds and started deportation proceedings against 685. The program only applies to inmates booked at the Cobb jail. The Acworth, Smyrna and Kennesaw police departments, which also have their own jails, do not participate in the program.
Critics of the 287(g) program say it opens the door for racial profiling, although Cobb Sheriff Neil Warren has adamantly dismissed that notion in Cobb.
Pellegrino said, “The problem with 287(g) is how it’s applied. It’s like the wild west out there with everyone applying it differently.”
Pellegrino said Secure Communities can also run that risk if DHS doesn’t devote adequate resources to implementing the program.
“If you don’t give resources to actually deporting people, you can identify them all you want,” he said. “The devil is in the details and how it’s enforced.”
As for King, although he might be slightly skeptical of the president’s intentions, he’s not opposed to any program that deports illegal immigrants.
“Deporting more than a million illegals will certainly demonstrate how to get rid of 20 million more,” he said. “It’s similar to the way it is done in Mexico.”
