National Outcry Builds Against President Obama's Mass Deportations

[Better Believe It]

National Outcry Builds Against Obama's Deportations
Over one million immigrants have been deported since President Obama took office, making his deportation track record the worst in the history of the United States.
by Kanya D'Almeida

On Tuesday, a coalition of human rights defenders, including the National Day Laborer Organizing Network (NDLON) and the Center for Constitutional Rights, teamed up with over 18 other national and community-based organizations to make public a comprehensive report detailing the often devastating impacts of S-Comm (Department of Homeland Security (DHS) operation known as Secure Communities) on immigrant communities in the U.S.

Launched by ICE in 2008, S-Comm was initially marketed to the U.S. public as a voluntary program designed to "improve and modernize the identification and removal of criminal aliens from the United States" by sending fingerprints submitted by local law enforcement agencies to the Federal Bureau of Investigation for criminal background checks, and then automatically searching those fingerprints against immigration databases.

Critics of the operation have blasted it as an open attack on immigrants' basic civil and human rights by trapping millions of undocumented residents – most of them innocent, or guilty only of very minor offenses such as traffic violations – in a dragnet that has so far expelled 115,000 immigrants from the country.

"This policy is creating an 'Arizonafication' of our country," Newman told IPS, parroting a phrase that has been used to describe the effects of Senate Bill 1070 in Arizona, which essentially legalized racial profiling and is widely believed to be the harshest piece of anti-immigration legislature implemented in the country.

Read the full article at:

http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=56889


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White House Response to Immigration Protests: Short on Facts, Long on Desperation
By: Felipe Matos
August 18, 2011

On Tuesday, Latinos and their allies in cities across the United States participated in actions demanding an immediate end to the controversial SCOMM program, a major driver of the Obama Administration’s record-breaking 1 million deportations. These actions, led by Presente.org and local partner groups, were fueled by our urgent concern that the overwhelming majority of the people deported under SCOMM are not hardened criminals, who the program is designed to target, but low-level offenders and even people who have committed no crime whatsoever. Rather than respond in a serious manner to the petitions that we delivered to the Obama campaign, the Administration decided to obfuscate the truth in a blog post by Cecilia Munoz, White House Director of Intergovernmental Affairs and the Administration’s primary Latina spokesperson on immigration.

In the post, audaciously titled “In the Debate Over Immigration and Deportations, the Facts Matter,” Munoz made a number of spurious claims, including that ‘Today more than half of all removals are people with criminal records.” This “fact” is misleading on multiple levels. First, Munoz is talking about all deportations, not those produced through SCOMM, which was the explicit focus of our actions, and which DHS records show deported far more non-criminals or low-level offenders (79 percent) than serious criminals. Second, not all criminal records are the same; Munoz is lumping together anyone who has ever been convicted of a crime, including small-time traffic offenders. People who have raped or committed murder are a lot different than people booked for driving without a license, and to insinuate otherwise is shameful.

Sadly, Munoz’ post is just one example of the Administrations’ fuzzy math on immigration and its growing desperation not to lose Latino votes. But there is something even more disingenuous in her words, which is the assertion that the president’s hands are tied on immigration policy. As Munoz writes “…the only way to do what’s necessary is for Congress to act and pass bipartisan legislation the President can sign into law.”

This is simply untrue. As the head of the executive branch, the president has broad discretion in the enforcement of immigration laws. He can place a moratorium on the deportation of DREAM Act students, he can end SCOMM, and he can drastically reduce the thousands of family separations that are the inevitable result of his current approach. His unwillingness to do these things, which have been repeatedly called for by Presente.org and numerous other groups, has nothing to do with Congress and everything to do with burnishing his enforcement credentials for the 2012 election.

http://my.firedoglake.com/fmatos007/2011/08/18/white-house-response-to-protests-short-on-facts-long-on-desperation/


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PRESS RELEASE

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Press Contact: Jacqueline Esposito, Main Phone: [phone] x 229, Cell Phone: [phone], E-mail: [email protected]
New York (Tuesday, August 16, 2011)

New York Lawmakers Call on President Obama to End Controversial “Secure Communities” Program

New York, NY – Senator Gustavo Rivera (D, WF-Bronx) today joined 33 state and local legislators in a letter to President Obama calling for an end to the discredited “Secure Communities” program, which has been the subject of widespread criticism for undermining public safety and contributing to racial profiling and civil rights violations in immigrant communities.

Earlier this month, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced that it was proceeding with its rapid rollout of the program despite objections raised by governors, law enforcement officials, and immigrant rights advocates. DHS maintains the program is mandatory for all states and localities but has refused to disclose legal documents requested under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) containing government officials’ analysis of whether jurisdictions could choose not to participate in the program.

The following is a statement from Jacqueline Esposito, Director of Immigration Advocacy for the New York Immigration Coalition:

"We thank Senator Rivera for joining with 33 of his colleagues in urging President Obama to end this deeply flawed program. The President claims that without Congress there is little he can do to stop tearing apart families and immigrant communities. Yet, it is the Department of Homeland Security, under the President’s leadership, not Congress, that is ignoring the legitimate concerns of public officials and law enforcement agents and forcing this program on unwilling states and localities across the country. The reality is that President Obama has made deportation a major priority of his administration – deporting more than 1 million immigrants through misguided enforcement programs like Secure Communities. And although Congress must act to pass immigration reform, the President can end programs like Secure Communities.”

The letter was signed by: City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, Public Advocate Bill de Blasio, City Comptroller John Liu, Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer, Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz Jr., Senator Gustavo Rivera, Senator Adriano Espaillat, Senator Jose M. Serrano, Senator Jose Peralta, Senator Martin Dilan, Senator Liz Krueger, Senator Ruth Hassell-Thompson, Senator Bill Perkins, Senator Diane Savino, Assembly Member Grace Meng, Assembly Member Felix Ortiz, Assembly Member Phil Ramos, Assembly Member Karim Camara, Assembly Member Guillermo Linares, Assembly Member Nelson Castro, Assembly Member Vanessa Gibson, Assembly Member Jeff Dinowitz, Assembly Member Richard Gottfried, Assembly Member Robert Rodriguez, Assembly Member Francisco Moya, Assembly Member Linda Rosenthal, Assembly Member Eric Stevenson, Council Member Melissa Mark-Viverito, Council Member Margaret Chin, Council Member Jumaane Williams, Council Member Daniel Dromm, Council Member Brad Lander, Council Member Julissa Ferreras and Council Member Ydanis Rodriguez.

The full text of the letter sent by Senator Rivera is below:

Dear Mr. President,

We are writing to express deep concern over the Department of Homeland Security’s (DHS) announcement last week that it “determined that a memorandum of agreement (MOA) is not required to activate or operate Secure Communities for any jurisdiction” and that it would proceed with Secure Communities without the prior authorization of state and local jurisdictions. This announcement follows the decisions of three governors to reject the program, including Governor Andrew Cuomo of New York, citing concerns that DHS officials misrepresented the voluntary nature of the program, its negative impact on community policing, and the civil and human rights violations resulting under the program.

Secure Communities has contributed to the deportation of more than one million immigrants under your administration, leading to fear and isolation in immigrant communities. In choosing to reject Secure Communities, Governor Cuomo and his counterparts in Illinois and Massachusetts have taken a stand against a program that undermines community safety and squanders resources on breaking up families and stoking fear in immigrant communities. Despite claims by DHS that Secure Communities was designed to promote public safety, by its very nature, the program fails to promote public safety because the moment local police engage in immigration enforcement they lose the trust of the communities they serve.

In the past several weeks, serious questions have been raised about how a program so fundamentally flawed in its design could ever be repaired. The governors of Illinois, New York, and Massachusetts have rejected Secure Communities; the Department of Homeland Security Office of Inspector General, responding to concerns by Congress that ICE misled state officials to believe that participation in Secure Communities was voluntary launched a review of the program; a federal judge in a FOIA litigation rejected ICE’s efforts to withhold documents that would reveal information about Secure Communities, concluding that “here is ample evidence that ICE and DHS have gone out of their way to mislead the public about Secure Communities;” the Congressional Hispanic Caucus called for a moratorium on the program noting it endangers the public, particularly communities of color; and the Congressional Progressive Caucus urged you to halt the rapid roll-out of the program.

In response to growing opposition to Secure Communities, DHS has convened a task force comprised of law enforcement officials, ICE agents, and advocates. This task force was established without public input and members of immigrant communities have not been asked to join the committee. The task force’s sole responsibility is to make recommendations concerning how Secure Communities should operate in cases involving immigrants charged with traffic offenses, which has prompted widespread criticism from more than 200 law enforcement officials and civil rights groups denouncing the task force as wholly insufficient to address the far-reaching problems with the program. Then, on Friday, August 5, 2011, rather than meaningfully responding to the legitimate concerns raised by government officials, law enforcement agents, and civil rights groups, DHS unilaterally canceled the MOAs with 42 states across the country, denying states and localities of their rights to opt-out of Secure Communities under the MOAs. A decision made by DHS without consulting state and local stakeholders – a move directly at odds with your stated commitment to transparency and accountability in government.

We urge you to consider Secure Communities’ devastating impact on local communities and the danger it poses to community policing and public safety, and end this failed program. We strongly believe that terminating Secure Communities is a necessary first step to begin to repair our unjust immigration system and ensure the protection of civil and human rights of all immigrants.


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http://www.thenyic.org/node/674

[FiveGoodMen]

1. Good.

[EFerrari]

2. The nutshell is, ICE LIED to communities and led them to believe

they could opt out of Secure Communities if they so chose. NOW, they are saying that was wrong, there is no opting out.

The CCR and others are getting all over this, thank goodness.

[n2doc]

3. This stuff is a political loser for him

The Righties will never believe that Obama is harsher on illegals than any republican. It is just like trying to convince them that he has lowered their taxes. Facts mean nothing.

And he infuriates Hispanics and liberals with these policies. So it is truly a no win.

[Hell Hath No Fury]

4. Bush era criminals, Wall Street criminals go free --

but immigrants, medical marijuana dispensaries, and whistleblowers are all fair game with O. :puke:

[Better Believe It]

5. Gotta bust those pot smoking, whistleblowing immigrants!

[frylock]

6. low-hanging fruit