By Brian Park.
On Wednesday, a group of city council members announced plans to fight a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) program that they claim unfairly targets legal immigrants for deportation.
The council members said they would present resolutions calling for Governor David Paterson to end participation in the Secured Communities program, which is intended to deport immigrants with serious criminal records. However, most of those who have been affected by the program are in the country legally and have been deported for minor offenses, according to the officials.
“We are making the point that Secure Communities does not guarantee a secure state or a secure New York City,” said councilman Ydanis Rodriguez.
Under the Secure Communities plan, local and state law enforcements will send an arrested individual’s information—fingerprints and criminal history—to the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency, or ICE. If such an individual is an immigrant and has a criminal record, ICE may then proceed to take appropriate action, in most cases deportation.
The program has come under heavy criticism by elected officials and advocates across the country. Rodriguez cited the recent case of Eligio Valerio, a legal immigrant from the Dominican Republic who was detained by ICE on a 1982 gun possession case and was eventually deported despite serving out the terms of probation for good behavior.
“Three months ago, [Valerio] was picked by ICE in his apartment,” said Valerio. “He had not broken any law in the last couple of years. He had been paying taxes for 30 years in this city.”
As of November 2, according to ICE reports, the program is active in 752 jurisdictions in 34 states. Since September 30, according to the American Immigration Council, 4,204,862 fingerprint submissions from law enforcement agencies resulted in 343,829 matches in ICE’s database. As a result of Secured Communities, ICE has deported 64,072 persons.
An additional part of the program allows ICE to maintain a presence in jails and prisons in order to screen for immigrants who are already detained. By 2013, ICE plans on implementing the program in all 3,100 state and local jails across the country.
The city council members will present two resolutions on Wednesday. The first calls for Governor Paterson to quickly rescind the Secure Communities Memorandum of Agreement signed by the Division of Criminal Justice Services on May 10. ICE claims that such an agreement cannot be cancelled by a jurisdiction, but on June 23, the Washington D.C. Metropolitan Police Department became the first and only law enforcement agency to opt out of the agreement.
The council members said they will pressure New York City to follow suit. The second part of the resolution asks Governor-elect Andrew Cuomo to continue with the Immigrant Pardon Board that Governor Paterson established earlier in the year. The board was created to review pardon applications of legal residents who, despite having been fully rehabilitated into society, face deportation because of past criminal records.
Among those in support of the resolutions are Brooklyn council members Diana Reyna of the 34th district, which includes Williamsburg and Bushwick, and Jumaane Williams of the 45th district, representing parts of Flatbush, East Flatbush, Flatlands and Canarsie. In 2001, Reyna became the first woman of Dominican descent to be elected into the state senate.
Wednesday’s rally took place a day after President Barack Obama’s public support for the Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors (DREAM) Act. President Obama met with the Congressional Hispanic Caucus and told its members that he supports their efforts to pass the proposed legislation in Congress. The DREAM Act was first introduced in 2001 and was reintroduced in 2009. The legislation will allow undocumented minors living in the United States an opportunity for citizenship after two years of military service or two years at a four-year institution of higher learning.
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