Street roots
Jan. 21, 2011
THUMBS from page 1
had hoped there would be some counties
that would call to question and request to be
deactivated.”
Multnomah County Sheriffs Office did
not formally sign an agreement with ICE to
join Secure Communities but does provide
th e information and data necessary to
participate. The sheriffs office also records
the birthplace of all detainees before
booking them into jail, information that is
compiled hourly and sent to ICE.
“We’re following federal law. We have to
follow the law because that’s what we do,”
said Lt. Mary Lindstrand, public-information
officer for the Multnomah County Sheriff’s
Office. The Human Rights Commission is
calling for the sheriff s office to stop
distributing lists of foreign-born individuals
to ICE, saying th at it’s ICE’s job to collect
the information.
Lorie Dankers, spokeswoman for ICE for
the Pacific Northwest, said participation in
Secure Communities is not optional. “It was
what was called for in the 9/11
Commission,” Dankers said. “The program
is mandated by Congress. They wanted us
to identify and remove criminal aliens.”
However, who they’re removing is also an
argument from opponents.
ICE Promotes Secure Communities as a
tool to identify, detain and remove
immigrants who have been convicted of a
serious criminal offense. It classifies
charges into three levels, with Level 1 and
Level 2 categorized as th e most serious
offenses, and Level 3, being “individuals
who have been convicted of other offenses.”
“We want to remove the most egregious
violators and the most egregious criminals
to the benefit o f public safety,” Dankers
said. “It’s like a virtual ICE presence in
every jail and allows us to identify and
remove those criminal aliens who pose the
greatest threat to our community.”
However, reviews of the program have
found that a significant portion
of the people turned over to
ICE lack a criminal
record. ICE itself puts
the national figure
at 28 percent, and
multiple reports
have th at figure
much higher
depending on
the
jurisdiction.
“What in
fact was
happening was
other types of
crimes where people
were also being
deported,” Johnson said.
Because everyone arrested
has his or her prints sent to ICE,
immigration rights advocates are
concerned that the program allows for
racial profiling and unnecessary detention.
If a person is arrested on a significant
charge, they argue, that person would
already be detained for the crime, not his or
her immigration status.
“We’re really talking about sweeping up
people who haven’t been adjudicated,”
Meyer said.
Dankers said that serious criminals
always take precedent over minor ones, but
that multiple arrests o r deportations,
regardless of criminal convictions, also
factor into ICE’s decision on how to process
an individual.
“We look at the totality of someone’s
criminal history and the totality of
someone’s immigration history, and we
prioritize based on that information,”
Dankers said.
In November, Washington State Patrol
announced that it would not sign the
agreem ent with ICE to join Secure
Communities. Bob Calkins, a spokesman
with the WSP, said the decision was in
deference to the county sheriff departments
and jails that technically “own” the
fingerprint property, and therefore retain
the authority to make the call. Calkin said if
a local sheriff o r jail requested that prints
be s6nt to ICE, they would do so. Calkins
said that to his knowledge, no one has made
that request since Secure Communities has
been on the table.
“We have a very full plate and we will
leave enforcement of federal laws to the
federal government,” Calkins said.
This past spring, San Francisco’s sheriff
requested to opt out of the program but was
denied by the state attorney general, who
said it was mandatory. The sheriff there
said it violated the city’s sanctuary policy.
O ther California jurisdictions have
requested information on opting out of the
program as well, to no avail. In New York, a
campaign is being spearheaded by the
Center for Constitutional Rights to rescind
th e state’s agreem ent with Secure
Communities.
Secure Communities works in tandem
with ICE’s Criminal Alien Program, which-
stations ICE agents in all jails throughout
Oregon and Washington to interview
immigrants who are detained.
The Portland Human Rights Commission
took issue with the ICE presence in the
jails.
“The presence of Immigration and
Customs Enforcement in the jail without
signage and without any kind of notice to
people about their rights were was
confusing. And th at was where the intersect
was happening,” Johnson said.
The commission wants people who are
booked to be notified that ICE may conduct
interviews for purposes unrelated to a
person’s charges. It also calls for people to
be notified of their right to remain silent
and refuse to answer quesions.
Secure Communities is the next evolution
of ICE’s 287 (g) program, which deputized
local law enforcement officers as
immigration agents, with arrest and
detention capacities if they suspect a person
is undocumented. In that regard, 2 8 7 (g) for.
ICE is similar to the FBI’s Joint Terrorism
Task Force,or JTTF, which would recruit
Portland police officers to operate,
essentially, as federal agents. The city pulled
out of the JTTF in 2005 over complaints
regarding oversight and concerns of local
police becoming federal operatives, but it is
now considering rejoining the JTTF,
following a bomb scare at Pioneer
Courthouse Square that was part of an FBI
sting.
Likewise, the 287(g) program has drawn
intense fire from immigration rights
advocates and even th e General Accounting
Office, including that officers were using
their immigration authority to arrest, detain
and deport people for minor offenses, even
though it was promoted as a means to catch
serious criminals. Rhode Island recently
pulled its state police out of the program. In
Nashville, Terin., a lawsuit was filed to
rescind similar participation by a county
sheriffs department. (That complaint stems
from a man who was arrested, listed by
police as being born in Mexico, and
processed through ICE, even though he was
born here in Portland.)
The 287(g) program is illegal in Oregon
under an Oregon law that prohibits state or
local law enforcement from collecting
information about individuals simply based
on their susp'ectqd immigration or o th e r.
non-crime-related status, which is also an
argument used by opponents of the JTTF
membership.
As a result of its research, the Portland
Human Rights Commission concluded that
the Portland Police Bureau does not enforce
immigration law and does not intend to do
so. The sheriffs office, however, is
“indirectly involved in immigration law
enforcement,” according to the
commission’s final report, and th e office’s
“collection and reporting practices result in
the sheriff’s unintended collaboration with
the detention and deportation of immigrant
community members.”
hen interactions with law enforcement
for low-level misdemeanors or
violations can turn into to possible ICE
detainers, “the ripple effect on the
community is to remove the tru st with law
W
enforcement ahd diminish the engagement
they would otherwise have. It has a way of
undermining trust,” M6yer said.
Francisco Lopez, executive director with
CAUSA, the state’s largest immigrant rights
group, says the relationship between local
law enforcement and ICE will deter
cooperation among immigrants in police
investigations.
“There are so many issues — domestic
violence, drug trafficking - that they will
not be reporting to the police because the
police have developed an alliance with ICE,”
"Nobody is doubting that ICE should be
doing its job, but who is doing it here? ICE
doesn't care about the community
relationship, the trust developed over the
years. They don't look at the economic or
fam ilia l relationship impact. They're just
doing their job. Why does the sheriff's deputy
have to do the work for ICE? That's what I
don't think is fair."
FRANCISCO LOPEZ
E X E C U T IV E D IR E C T O R , C A U S A
Lopez says.
According to Lopez, 32 percent of Latinos
in Oregon are undocumented, and many live
in families where members of multiple
status. Even if one or more members are in
the United States legally, a family may have
other members who would be at risk.
“It’s sad,” Lopez said. “We have good
police officers that have great relationship
with their community. But now, little by
little, they’re losing trust because of that
relationship. Theydon’X even.want-tOGall----
th e police.
“Nobody is doubting that ICE should be '
doing its job, but who is doing it here?”
Lopez said. “ICE doesn’t care about the
community relationship, th e trust developed
over the years. They don’t look at the
economic o r familial relationship im pact
They’re just doing their job. Why does the
sheriff’s deputy have to do the work for
ICE? That’s what I don’t think is fair.”
“This is a population who lives in the
shadows and they live in fear all of the time,
and they’re constantly living in a state of
stress and trauma, and always looking over
their shoulder,” said Beth Poteet with the
Oregon New Sanctuary Movement. “So with
the advent of increased collaboration
between ICE and local law enforcement, of
course people are going to be reticent to
call police to help them out, because they’re
afraid they’re going to be detained for not
having proper documentation.”
• Johnson said that the Human Rights
Commission and the sheriff will conduct
ongoing meetings to sort out what is
possible in term s of the recommendations,
what can be done immediately and what
needs more thought, she said.
“Acknowledging too, that corrections and
law enforcement collaborate, that is the
nature of their work. What does it mean for
an institution to collaborate with one and
not the other?”
Among the recommendations is to make
sure that individuals are informed of their
rights before being questioned by an
immigration officer, discontinue spending
local resources to compile hourly reports to
ICE, and formalize a request to the Oregon
State Police to opt out of Secure
Communities.
In the end, it is a civil offense, not a
criminal offense, to be in the United States
without proper documentation, said Poteet.
And without money, a particular type of
relative, or an employer already backing you,
there are few options to live here legally,
she said.
“This is a public safety issue, and it’s
really scary for folks, and they’re not being
protected in the way that they need to be,”
Poteet said. “They still have rights, even if
they don’t have proper documentation.”