The University of North Carolina School of Law recently joined forces with the ACLU and published a report aimed at stopping ICE cooperation with state and local law enforcement. The paper also advocates mass, illegal-alien amnesty.
Despite the fact that the report has been celebrated by a number of media outlets, the paper is quite an embarrassment for the law school as it provides no new data, no statistics, and very little analysis—even though the paper is a whopping 152-pages long. Instead, the paper is full of accusations, inaccuracies, and anecdotal evidence. It is heavy on conclusions, all of which seem to be cut-and-pasted from earlier ACLU publications aimed at perpetuating illegal immigration.

Unfortunately, the authors are attempting to change policy based on unsubstantiated anecdotes. This is becoming common practice for the open-border crowd.
One of the authors’ key claims is not only without citation, it’s also false. The authors want state and local enforcement to apply only to aliens who are convicted of felonies. They seek a “stay here illegally until someone is seriously injured” policy. The authors claim that the 287(g) program “was originally intended to target and remove undocumented immigrants convicted of violent crimes, human smuggling, gang/organized crime activity, sexual-related offenses, narcotics smuggling and money laundering.” That this claim was not cited is not an oversight. In fact, they can’t back this up with evidence: The 287(g) program was not created with a limited focus on criminal aliens. Here’s the statutory text:

[T]he Attorney General may enter into a written agreement with a State, or any political subdivision of a State, pursuant to which an officer or employee of the State or subdivision, who is determined by the Attorney General to be qualified to perform a function of an immigration officer in relation to the investigation, apprehension, or detention of aliens in the United States (including the transportation of such aliens across State lines to detention centers), may carry out such function at the expense of the State or political subdivision and to the extent consistent with State and local law. [8 U.S.C. §1357(g). The entire statute is available]

Clearly, the law does not require that aliens be violent, drug-peddling rapists for 287(g) to take effect. The statutory text and the Congressional record are exactly opposite from the claims being advanced by the amnesty crowd. At a recent Congressional hearing the original author of the statute, Congressman Lamar Smith (R-Tx.), explained this fact:
I was the House author of the 1996 immigration bill that included the 287(g) program and…there’s nothing in the legislation that limits the program to detaining those who committed serious crimes. The goal was not that at all; the goal was to enable those local law enforcement authorities who wanted to, to enforce the immigration laws in whatever way they thought best. And that might or might not include those who committed serious crimes.