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