CNN

Reid tacks disastrous ‘DREAM Act’ amnesty onto defense bill

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said Tuesday he will add the DREAM Act, a controversial immigration measure, to a defense policy bill the Senate will take up next week. — The decision means the defense bill, which often passes with bipartisan support, will be home to two major, thorny political issues…

HERE

Associated Press

Mexico marks anniversary of 1847 battle with U.S.

President Felipe Calderon on Monday criticized both Americans and Mexicans for their roles in the 1846-48 war that cost Mexico half its territory during a ceremony commemorating the definitive battle of the conflict. — Speaking on the 163rd anniversary of the Battle of Chapultepec, Calderon called the war…

HERE

I am struggling to get Galloway’s point. A conversation with someone who actually knows what the facts are is unpleasant and that it is too expensive to protect the rule of law and jobs for American “working stiffs” in their own country? Not his best work.

Smoke, mirrors and illegal immigration
3:00 pm September 11, 2010

by Jim Galloway

A remarkable political conversation occurred down in middle Georgia last week.

In a 30-second TV spot, U.S. Rep. Jim Marshall, D-Macon, accused Republican challenger Austin Scott of unauthorized possession of a conscience.

Scott, of course, with ambitions of going to Congress, was forced to empty his pockets and deny ever having something so wicked on his person.

You see, four years ago, as a state lawmaker from Tifton, Scott cast a vote against an effort to slap a 5 percent tax on money wired home by illegal immigrants.

Scott told his fellow House members that — while he understood and supported a crackdown on illegal immigration — he had “a moral problem” with ripping money from the hands of working stiffs who were simply trying to fend for their families.

Now older and wiser, a reformed Scott brushed aside the 2006 newspaper clippings that provided evidence of this unfortunate brush with decency and restraint.

His real problem with the bill, Scott told a reporter, was that it wasn’t tough enough. It applied only to cash moved through Western Union, not banks or credit unions.

We are entering the final phase of the 2010 silly season, and illegal immigration is guaranteed to be a large part of it.

Republicans in Congress, including U.S. Sen. Johnny Isakson, talk of re-examining what the authors of the 14th Amendment truly meant when they said anyone born on American soil should be considered a U.S. citizen.

Democratic nominee for governor Roy Barnes has expressed his comfort with an Arizona-style law that would give law enforcement agencies in Georgia the right to demand papers from those who look like they don’t belong.

Republican rival Nathan Deal is hardly likely to allow himself to be out-aliened.

No doubt all parties are sincere. Illegal immigration is a serious problem, with expensive and very real consequences.

But there is a difference between what is said on the stump, and what is achievable in Washington or Atlanta. Between what is promised, and what is actually delivered.

Any doubters are hereby condemned to a conversation with D.A. King, citizen-lobbyist and the state Capitol’s foremost proponent of tougher laws for illegal immigrants and those who employ them.

King, a 58-year-old Cobb County resident, was a primary force behind the 2006 illegal immigration package passed by our Republican-controlled Legislature.

Until Arizona did what it did, GOP lawmakers — including Scott, who voted for it — called their Georgia legislation the toughest in the land. One of its more important provisions required cities and counties to use E-Verify, a free federal government database used to spot undocumented workers.

But the legislation included no punishment for local officials who ignored the law. “I say where there is no penalty there is no law,” King said.

For the last two years, King has pushed to insert a set of toothy dentures into the legislation, stopped each time by the Georgia Municipal Authority and the Association County Commissioners of Georgia.

The two groups argue that the law is so vague and contradictory in places that no individual county or city official should be threatened with prosecution for failure to enforce it.

The experience has left King jaded and disappointed — with Democrats, who claim to represent wage-earners, and with Georgia’s ruling party.

“I’m fascinated when I see Republicans vow what they will do next year. And when in committee, when pressure is applied, their stamina seems to dissolve,” King said.

Fail to put an enforcement clause into the legislation next year, King said, “and that’s when the rallies will begin again, and they won’t be pointed at illegal aliens. I promise.”

The General Assembly will have more than King’s threats to worry about in January, when GOP lawmakers will be required to fulfill their promises of an Arizona-style bill aimed at illegal immigration.

Here’s something to listen for: When candidates raise the topic of Arizona, note whether they mention the financial cost. If they don’t, or say that money is no object, there’s a good chance you’re being had.

For instance, authorizing and encouraging a city police officer to arrest a suspected illegal immigrant means that particular municipality would be responsible for the costs of lodging him in the local county hoosegow.

“Cities have to pay county jails $45 per day [per person] for food and lodging. And it could be four or five years before the federal government picks him up,” said Amy Henderson of the Georgia Municipal Association.

If all that sounds like no big deal, remember that most cities in Georgia are small and — right now — extremely poor. Counties aren’t much better off. Douglas County just cut loose an aging drug trafficker – and illegal immigrant – because it couldn’t handle his health care bill.

Cities and counties will want to know who pays for the promises of November. So should you.

HERE

Cherokee Tribune

Program will use fingerprints to ID illegal immigrants
by staff reports
September 11, 2010

The Cherokee Sheriff’s Office soon will begin using a new program to turn illegal immigrants over to federal authorities.

The agency on Friday announced it has been approved to participate in the Secure Communities program, a U.S. Department of Homeland Security initiative to identify and remove criminal aliens.

When the program comes online in mid-November, the fingerprints of every person booked into the Cherokee County Adult Detention Center automatically will be compared against the databases of the Department of Homeland Security, Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the FBI.

If someone enters the county jail who is wanted by ICE, an agent will contact a deputy at the jail to place a “hold” on the individual.

The sheriff’s office already notifies ICE about known illegal immigrants in the jail, but this program expands that relationship through the use of the Automated Fingerprint Identification System and federal databases.

“We are pleased to be participating in this program and will aggressively pursue all efforts to identify and remove persons who are in this country illegally and have them removed in accordance with all state and federal laws,” Cherokee County Sheriff Roger Garrison said.

The agency still is waiting for approval for another program to address illegal immigration: the federal 287(g) Immigration and Nationality Act.

Sheriff’s office Public Information Officer Lt. Jay Baker said on Friday the application still is “pending.”

The sheriff in November 2008 applied for the program, which trains deputies to aid in immigration enforcement.

The program trains and authorizes local law enforcement officers to identify, process and detain immigration offenders. Agencies approved for the program also receive funding to jail detainees.

In the application, training is requested for nine sheriff’s office deputies.

Read more: Cherokee Tribune – Program will use fingerprints to ID illegal immigrants

MEDIA ADVISORY 12 September 2010

The Dustin Inman Society (DIS)
www.TheDustinInmanSociety.org
3595 Canton Rd. A-9/337
Marietta, Ga. 30066
Contact: D.A. King

The Dustin Inman Society grassroots ‘Secure our Georgia Community’ program

DIS president D.A. King announces a statewide, grassroots effort to encourage use of the no-cost U.S. Department of Homeland Security ‘Secure Communities’ program.

From the ICE Website; “Secure Communities: A Comprehensive Plan to Identify and Remove Criminal Aliens is a Department of Homeland Security initiative that improves public safety by implementing a comprehensive, integrated approach to identify and remove criminal aliens from the United States”.

Today, Dustin Inman Society president D.A. King makes public the DIS “Secure our Georgia Community” program which involves pro-enforcement supporters across the state educating their local law enforcement agencies on the public safety benefits of taking advantage of the federal ‘Secure Communities’ program.

Secure Communities can be used by local law enforcement agencies with a jail and shares fingerprints taken from subjects booked into the jail. The system helps identify aliens in law enforcement custody through modernized technology, continual data analysis and timely information sharing.

King reports that DIS will enlist the help of the thousands of supporters across Georgia to press their local law enforcement agencies to become active in the no-cost fingerprint sharing initiative made available by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). “Most Americans realize that all illegal aliens are criminals and are deportable” notes King.

“As we sadly observe the ninth anniversary of the horror of 9/11, we should all be outraged about the countless numbers of illegal aliens who have committed additional crimes in our nation and are still walking our streets because of the use of fraudulent ID and lax enforcement” said King. Our goal is to have 100% of eligible local law enforcement agencies in Georgia active in Secure Communities well before September 11, 2011” announced King, a longtime pro-enforcement advocate on immigration and employment laws.

“Secure Communities has proven to be an effective tool in deterring ID fraud and is responsible for the deportation of thousands of illegal aliens from all over the world who have escaped capture at our borders and illegally entered the United States without inspection” noted King.

King reports that later this week, he will make a Secure Communities resource page available to DIS supporters across Georgia which will include a link to the official Secure Communities Website . The DIS resource page will also feature a link to an official Secure Communities page from which active pro-enforcement Americans can download and print a color brochure to share with their local elected officials and law enforcement leaders as an educational tool.

“We want to help the Obama administration in its stated goal of activating 100% of eligible local law enforcement agencies nationwide in Secure Communities program by 2013” (see article) said King. “We hope to create a nation-wide wave of similar action aimed at educating the public on use of the Secure Communities program.

“The zealots on the anti-enforcement fringe are comically apoplectic in their opposition to Secure Communities notes King. That should be reason enough for Georgians to pressure their local governments to use Secure Communities.”

DIS Mission Statement HERE

Article:
Smoke, mirrors and illegal immigration
Atlanta Journal Constitution (blog)
Any doubters are hereby condemned to a conversation with DA King, citizen-lobbyist and the state Capitol’s foremost proponent of tougher laws for illegal …

As good a report on Secure Communities as I have ever seen:

AJC

September 6, 2010

Jeremy Redmon
Starting Tuesday: Cobb, Fulton jail inmates to be checked for immigration status

Starting Tuesday, law enforcement officials will start screening everyone fingerprinted and booked into jails in Cobb and Fulton counties against an additional national database to see whether they are in the country legally.

Enlarge photo Vino Wong, vwong@ajc.com At the Gwinnett County Jail, all inmates go through a full body search by deputy sheriffs.

Enlarge photo Vino Wong, vwong@ajc.com Inmates wait in a holding cell at the Gwinnett County Jail.

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Called “Secure Communities,” the $200 million federal program aimed at deporting violent criminal immigrants started during the Bush administration in 2008. It has been adding local jurisdictions since and has a goal of nationwide screening in the next four years. Clayton, DeKalb and Gwinnett counties already participate.

Local jailers don’t have to do anything differently to take part. They already transmit fingerprints to state and federal crime databases to confirm identities and check for outstanding arrest warrants and criminal histories. But now those fingerprints also will be checked automatically against millions of other prints held by the federal Department of Homeland Security.

That federal agency collects fingerprints from a variety of people, including those who apply for visas and those caught crossing the border illegally.

Jailers say checking fingerprints against the database helps prevent illegal immigrants from deceiving them with aliases and other false information. Federal immigration officials tell local jailers whether they find matches in their system. And if these federal officials find matches, they could seek to deport the local inmates. But that is done only after their criminal charges have been adjudicated and after they have completed sentences for any crimes they committed in the U.S.

These fingerprint screenings already take place in 574 jurisdictions in 30 states, according to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. ICE officials say Muscogee County near Columbus is also joining the program Tuesday.

Law enforcement officials in Cobb and Fulton counties said they wanted the screenings because illegal immigrants are committing crimes in their communities and repeatedly returning to their jails. In Roswell, for example, police said they had already processed more than 1,100 foreign-born inmates in the city jail by May 11 this year. For years, Roswell Police Chief Ed Williams has sent immigration officials a daily list of inmates suspected of being in the country illegally.

“I believe Secure Communities will be helpful identifying those in this country illegally much more accurately and rapidly,” Williams said. “I won’t have to fax arrest information to ICE anymore.”

The screenings come to Cobb and Fulton amid a national debate over giving local authorities in Arizona and elsewhere the power to enforce immigration laws. Critics fear Secure Communities screenings contribute to racial profiling and discourage immigrants from reporting crimes to police, including serious cases of domestic violence.

Officials in Washington, D.C., backed out of the program in June, even before it started. And San Francisco Sheriff Michael Hennessey wrote the federal government last week, asking to take his county jail system out of the program.

“The frustrating thing about this is, what the Obama administration went to court to stop in Arizona is being perpetuated by these types of initiatives,” said Jerry Gonzalez, executive director of the Georgia Association of Latino Elected Officials. “People are afraid to call their local law enforcement, and that undermines public safety.”

Federal immigration officials say they have not received any complaints of racial profiling because of the new screenings. The Secure Communities program, they note, does not empower local police to arrest, detain or transport people for immigration violations. Once their fingerprints are found in the Homeland Security system, it’s up to federal immigration officials to take them into custody and deport them.

Witnesses to crimes who have not been charged with any offenses are not fingerprinted, ICE officials said. And regarding the fear of racial profiling, proponents of the program point out that all inmates’ fingerprints are checked against the Homeland Security Department system, whether or not they are suspected of being in the country illegally.

Gwinnett County’s jail has been participating in the program since November. There, the number of foreign-born inmates booked into the jail has dropped 25 percent comparing the year ending in August with the previous year, said Capt. Jon Spear, of the county Sheriff’s Office.

“Our numbers do not show it,” Spear said in response to fears of some that officers would simply begin arresting people for minor offenses if they thought they might be in the country illegally. “We have strict policies and procedures that prohibit racial profiling.”

As of July 31, law enforcement officials have used the fingerprint program to deport 746 people from Georgia, according to ICE statistics. Of those, only 91 — or 12 percent — had been convicted of the most serious — or “Level 1″ — crimes, including national security crimes, murder, manslaughter, rape, robbery and kidnapping. The rest were convicted of less serious charges or had no conviction records.

Nationwide, 50,972 people have been deported through the program. Of those, 10,866 — or 21 percent — were convicted of the most serious crimes.

“We will challenge theses states and municipalities that are engaging in this type of persecution of people who have not committed crimes at all or people who have committed minor violations,” said Pablo Alvarado, executive director of the Los Angeles-based National Day Laborer Organizing Network. “It’s leaving families without their fathers and without their mothers. And that is completely unAmerican. It has to stop.”

But ICE’s statistics can be deceiving. Some people arrested on lesser crimes may have been deported because of prior convictions for violent crimes or because there were warrants for their arrests for violent offenses in other countries, ICE officials said. They also could have been deported because they had been previously and returned illegally.

Meanwhile, another factor comes into play in the numbers: Sentences are longer for violent crimes. Illegal immigrants convicted of those serious offenses and identified through the Secure Communities program for deportation won’t show up in the “deported” column until after serving their sentences in state prisons.

“When you look at the entire record,” said David Venturella, ICE’s assistant director of the Secure Communities program, “you find out that the person was previously removed or had been arrested multiple times before in other parts of the country, or they have overstayed their visa. So there is more to it than just the offense they were arrested for. You have to look at the total record.”

Immigrant arrests

County
Fingerprint checks
*Total foreign-born nationals identified
Foreign-born nationals identified who were charged with or convicted of Level 1 crimes
Total arrested or booked into federal custody
Arrested or booked into federal custody who were charged with or convicted of Level 1 crimes
Total Deported
Total deported who were charged with or convicted of Level 1 crimes
Percentage of those deported who were charged with or convicted of Level 1 crimes

Clayton
13,284
943
62
236
33
127
18
14

DeKalb
17,420
1,538
137
356
46
180
22
12

Gwinnett
21,328
3,150
256
930
90
439
51
11

Nationwide
3,280,114
287,611
43,175
96,293
24,079
50,972
10,866
21

*These foreign-born nationals may be in the country legally or not.

Level 1 crimes include major drug offenses, national security crimes, and violent crimes such as murder, manslaughter, rape, robbery and kidnapping.

County statistics are from Nov. 17, 2009, to July 31, 2010

Nationwide statistics cover Oct. 27, 2008, to July 31, 2010

Source: U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement

Read the entire report HERE

Marietta Daily Journal

Activist calls for probe into GDOT E-Verify affidavit
by Katy Ruth Camp

krcamp@mdjonline.co m

September 09, 2010

MARIETTA – Local anti-illegal immigration activist D.A. King is calling for an investigation into whether the Georgia Department of Transportation and Lithonia-based Bromell Manicured Lawns violated Georgia immigration law. However, Sheriff Neil Warren said such an investigation is not “in my jurisdiction or within my authority.”

King first made his request to Cobb County District Attorney Pat Head on Sept. 3, and made his second formal request for an investigation on Wednesday. King said the Georgia Bureau of Investigation told him he could not make a request for investigation as a citizen and had to “go through a sheriff, chief of police, district attorney or district court judge as they can enforce and adjudicate the law.” Head sent King’s request Wednesday to Warren, stating that reports of a crime are generally sent to the Sheriff’s Office or another law enforcement agency.

King said the affidavit GDOT has used in the past is illegal, according to the Department of Homeland Security, as it does not require contract companies to officially attest to using the federal citizenship confirmer E-Verify until after contracts have been awarded.

“The law says in an effort for us to create a level playing field for contractors, as a public employer, you may not consider a bid until that contractor making the bid has submitted the affidavit, giving its user number and date of MOU (Memorandum of Understanding),” King said. “They can’t even consider the bid until that’s happened. GDOT is telling people that successful low bidders will then be required to submit an affidavit saying they are using E-Verify. But that only verifies newly hired employees, and if you hired someone yesterday, you can’t check them. So GDOT has allowed contractors to bid on a projection of the cost of illegal labor, and then be hired. And that is far from right.”

GDOT spokesman David Spear acknowledged Wednesday that the organization was not following the law by not requiring contractors to submit their E-Verify user numbers, but only inadvertently. He added that GDOT has since changed its affidavit.

“The department’s mission is transportation. It its not immigration policy,” he said. “We’re going to do what we have to in accordance to the law, and frankly, we appreciate this being brought to our attention because we overlooked it. But the responsibility of making sure contractors comply with those laws lies with the contractors – not us. We don’t have the personnel or the mission to go out everyday and enforce immigration compliance. We have hundreds of thousands of contracts at any given time, and the responsibility is absolutely theirs.”

In the case of Bromell Manicured Lawns, which is under a $500,000 contract with GDOT for its mowing services, King said the company president, Michael Bromell, signed an affidavit dated June 16, 2010, that the company was using E-Verify as a condition of obtaining a work contract with GDOT. But King said, according to documents he obtained from U.S. Homeland Security, the company did not obtain an MOU with E-Verify until Aug. 26, 2010.

According to Georgia Senate Bill 447, passed this spring, “Contractors and subcontractors convicted for false statements based on a violation of this subsection shall be prohibited from bidding on or entering into any public contract for 12 months following such conviction.”

Such violations performed by public bodies, such as GDOT, however, incur no penalties.

Spear said Bromell’s company is still employed with GDOT. The phone number listed for Bromell’s company has been disconnected.

“If it ends up being the case that they did something wrong, we did not know that. They indicated to us that they had gotten E-Verify either in May or June, which was the time of the original contract. If turns out they didn’t get it until August 26th, then certainly they’ve violated their contract terms and we will address that with them. Whether that is the case remains to be seen, but what they have indicated to us is that they got it in May, we took their word, and they signed a sworn affidavit. If that proves somehow to be otherwise, we will do what we need to do internally,” Spear said.

When asked if that meant revoking the company’s contract with GDOT, Spear said: “That would be likely.”

Warren said Wednesday evening that he had not had an opportunity to look at the full complaint, but that after looking at it briefly, neither the lawn company nor GDOT are within his jurisdiction and therefore he cannot investigate them for their actions.

Still, King said he hopes someone, whether it is the Georgia Attorney General’s Office or the GBI, would conduct an investigation into both GDOT and Bromell’s actions, as it would “create some fear in contractors and other agencies that there will be an enforcement of the law.”

King said government bodies are not held responsible for their own actions because the Association of County Commissioners of Georgia and the Georgia Municipal Association have effectively lobbied against provisions in recent immigration laws that would pose penalties on public bodies that break the law.

“The district attorney quoted to me this morning, ‘If there is no penalty, there is no crime.’ But these are blatant violations of the law. Taxpaying Americans are being swindled out of jobs in Georgia because of the actions of GDOT,” King said. “It looks to me like the good ole boys at GDOT are even less interested in the rule of law than they are in welfare of the American people.”

Read more: The Marietta Daily Journal – Activist calls for probe into GDOT E Verify affidavit

Mark Krikorian — National Review

More protests, please!

Prosecutors in L.A. yesterday charged open-borders protesters for blocking streets and causing massive traffic jams earlier this year in objection to the Arizona immigration law. I don’t know who thinks these stunts up, but you’ve got to wonder about their sanity — does anyone really think trapping people in the cars for hours is likely to get them to sympathize with your cause?

HERE

“Seventy-one percent of the people arrested for driving without a license in Dalton from August 2009 through July 2010 were Hispanic, police records show.”

Aug. 23, 2010
Leaving Dalton

Chattaonooga Times
Perla Trevizo

DALTON, Ga. — For Sandra Reyes, Georgia was home since she was 9, the place where she graduated from high school and became involved in her community.

And where the reality sank in that she was an illegal immigrant.

“I didn’t realize what it really meant to be undocumented until I was about to graduate from high school,” the 25-year-old said in a telephone interview from Dallas. “So I really never thought I was going to have to leave Dalton.”

She and her husband, Ignacio, 31, left Dalton four months ago in the face of tougher immigration enforcement and high unemployment rates, she said.

“The situation in Dalton is not the most ideal for undocumented immigrants,” said Reyes, who recently graduated from an online college with a bachelor’s degree in psychology. “You never know when you might get stopped and end up being deported.”

The Reyeses are not alone. There are no hard numbers on how many illegal immigrants have left the Dalton-Whitfield County area because no one knows how many were there to start with. But some in the community say evidence points to an exodus of Hispanic immigrants at least over the past two years.

“Anecdotally, many feel that many of the male population within the Hispanic community may have left looking for jobs, and that’s certainly what most any of us would do,” said Brian Anderson, president and chief executive officer of the Dalton-Whitfield Chamber of Commerce.

Daniel Luna, a Mexico native and music teacher in Dalton who’s here legally, said he has lost students because they became unemployed or were deported.

“It’s almost a given that, if you get stopped for any reason and you are driving without a license, you are going to get arrested and if (you) are in the country illegally, deported,” he said.

“A lot of my students have offered to pay more if I teach them in Chattanooga,” he said. “Others often miss class because they can’t find anyone to drive them.”

Previously, Dalton Mayor David Pennington said the city picked up less garbage, that more apartment buildings and trailer parks are empty and that more businesses have closed.

“Whether that is due to any kind of (out) migration or just the general economy is hard to measure,” Anderson said.

Because the local Hispanic student population has not decreased, the belief is that the children and perhaps their mothers and grandmothers have stayed behind, he said.

MORE POLICE ATTENTION?

Luna and Reyes say there have been more police roadblocks, especially in areas with high concentrations of Hispanics.

Seventy-one percent of the people arrested for driving without a license in Dalton from August 2009 through July 2010 were Hispanic, police records show.

Since drivers must produce a Social Security number and proof of citizenship or legal status, people in the country illegally can’t get a driver’s license in Georgia or Tennessee.

But Dalton Police Department spokesman Bruce Frazier said police only set up road checks for seat-belt or drunken-driving enforcement operations.

“We don’t discriminate based on race, gender or ethnicity,” he said. “I don’t know why that perception would be out there.”

Frazier said people don’t get pulled over simply for driving without a license.

“They have to break some traffic violation,” he said.

Anyone who feels discriminated against “can file a complaint with our department, and it will be investigated,” he said.

As of July 31, the Whitfield County Sheriff’s Office had identified 422 people for deportation in the current fiscal year, which ends Sept. 30, compared with 379 in the previous fiscal year…

HERE

VIDEO HERE – D.A. King on Secure Communities

WXIA TV ATLANTA 11 Alive

‘Secure Communities’ Rolls Out in Cobb, Fulton Counties’

MARIETTA, GA — A new federal program is going into effect in Cobb and Fulton Counties. The program screens the fingerprints of people who are arrested against a national database, in an effort to verify their immigration status. It’s drawing praise and criticism.

Fingerprints are one of the few distinguishing features almost all of us have. Being fingerprinted is an activity widely associated with being arrested for committing a crime.

Now, a new program, called Secure Communities, will run the fingerprints of those arrested, against a national database to check an inmate’s immigration status.

“Secure communities is very important from the pro-American point-of-view in that it provides a great deal of faith and confidence in our local law enforcement,” said D.A. King with the Dustin Inman Society.

Secure Communities is part of a $1.4 billion effort by the Department of Homeland Security and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to identify and remove criminal aliens from the United States. It allows local law enforcement authorities to compare the fingerprints of people who are arrested against a national database of illegal criminal aliens.

The program is being rolled out across the United States. This week, it goes into effect in Cobb and Fulton Counties. Gwinnett, DeKalb and Clayton Counties are already using the program.

“Its important to remember that Secure Communities, as used by local enforcement, is only a tool by which local law enforcement notifies the federal government about the presence of an illegal alien that has been arrested,” King said. “The entire rest of the process is up to the federal government.”

But the program is not without its opponents who believe it could open the door to racial profiling by local police.

“It diverts scarce law enforcement resources towards minor traffic violations, rather than focusing on serious crimes,” says Jerry Gonzalez with the Georgia Association of Latino Elected Officials.

“This undermines public safety because you alienate a segment of the community that should feel comfortable calling law enforcement to prevent crime and solving crime,” Gonzalez added.

“It’s just a way to find, locate and report illegal aliens. It’s a huge success, and that is why the anti-enforcement crowd is so dead-set against it,” King said.

ICE plans to have the Secure Communities initiative rolled out across the country by the end of 2013.

HERE