Pricey equipment may slow Colorado sheriffs' enforcement of Secure Communities immigration program

Posted: 07/06/2011 01:00:00 AM MDT

GRAND JUNCTION — Summit County Sheriff John Minor is an advocate of the Secure Communities program that he says will help to quickly identify the undocumented inmates in his jail. But Minor, along with two dozen other sheriffs in Colorado, can't afford the pricey equipment needed to make the program work as planned.

While political arguments rage over whether the Secure Communities program is a heavy-handed way to force local jurisdictions to help ferret out criminal illegal immigrants or whether it is the best way to ensure undocumented criminals are deported or incarcerated, Colorado sheriffs are struggling with another issue — how to pay for it.

"We're not happy campers," said Don Christensen , director of the County Sheriffs of Colorado organization.

The lack of available funding is causing consternation around the state as Colorado moves toward fully implementing Secure Communities by 2013 as required under a memorandum of agreement with federal immigration authorities. Three Front Range counties — Denver, Arapahoe and El Paso — are serving as pilot programs to work out any glitches in a system designed to pass digitally scanned fingerprints of suspected illegal immigrant arrestees from local jurisdictions to the Colorado Bureau of Investigation and on to the FBI and Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

But 39 percent of the state's 64 counties aren't equipped to do that. They don't have functional digital electronic scanners that are a key to an integrated local, state and federal program. The cost to each county to purchase updated equipment is an estimated $50,000, according to Christensen.

This has created a dilemma for law enforcement agencies that are already having to cut programs and lay off employees. Some are limping by with outdated equipment such as breathalyzers and security cameras. As their now-outdated 7-year-old fingerprint scanners are giving out, some counties including Summit have had to revert to the error-ridden "ink-and-roll" fingerprints. These must be mailed to the CBI and can take weeks to identify.

"Some of these laws like Secure Communities are great and the processes are awesome, but when the costs get driven down to the bottom level, it is very frustrating," Minor said.

The sheriffs association and the CBI sought federal funding for new scanners this year but received only $325,000 of the $2.4 million requested. Meanwhile, the federal government made money available for ICE to add more beds in detention centers and more agents.

The problem is hitting sheriffs now because about seven years ago, sheriffs offices in Colorado were able to use federal grant money to purchase fingerprint scanners that enabled them to move beyond the ink-and-roll method. But Christensen said as those scanners reach the end of their life span, repairs are too costly. Minor paid $3,000 simply to have his broken machine examined. Replacement parts aren't available. And the cost of the new systems has more than quadrupled.

"We're not against Secure Communities. We're very supportive of it," Christensen said. "But some of these counties are just dead in the water. The technology has failed us."

ICE spokesman Carl Rusnok counters that Secure Communities can be implemented without the technology. He said counties can participate even if they are still relying on the older inked form of fingerprint gathering.

But it won't work quickly. Counties without scanners will have to mail paper prints to the CBI. Some sheriffs say that undermines the purpose of Secure Communities — to make sure serious illegal immigrant criminals don't land back on the streets. Sheriffs say inmates may bond out and disappear before their fingerprints can be checked using the older technologies.

Lance Clem, CBI spokesman, noted there is a very high rejection rate for inked fingerprints at the CBI, which slows the process even more.

Clem said the CBI is going to try to squeeze as many digital scanners out of the reduced federal grant money as possible. He said the agency is wrangling with several vendors to try to bring the costs down and is also diverting the dollars earmarked for administration into buying more equipment.

Like Rusnok, Clem said the lack of equipment won't stop or delay the program in Colorado even though Secure Communities is designed to work with the newer digital-scanning technology.

"Secure Communities won't be stopped by the lack of equipment," Clem said. "But to make it work the way it was planned, it will be necessary."

__.

New ICE audits target 1,000 firms

By: Jennifer Epstein
June 16, 2011 06:54 AM EDT

The Obama administration initiated a new round of immigration investigations on Wednesday, targeting 1,000 companies across the country, with a focus on businesses critical to national security and other government functions.

The companies will be facing Immigrations and Customs Enforcement audits of I-9 forms and documents filed by employees to show their eligibility to work in the United States.

“The inspections will touch on employers of all sizes and in every state in the nation, with an emphasis on businesses related to critical infrastructure and key resources,” ICE spokeswoman Gillian Christensen said in a statement.

The agency does not disclose the names of the companies being investigated, but they include large and small businesses in 17 sectors, including agriculture and food, financial services, commercial nuclear reactors, drinking water and water treatment, postal and shipping, health care and transportation.

“Ultimately, our focus on businesses related to critical infrastructure and key resources aligns with our priority as an agency to first and foremost minimize threats to national security and public safety,” Christensen said.

Though the U.S. Chamber of Commerce has typically not commented on ICE audits, a spokesman for the group expressed trepidation about this latest round. “We are concerned the audits are being based more on a fishing expedition than firm facts,” Randy Johnson, a senior vice president, told the Wall Street Journal.

“Because these audits can cost millions of dollars in lost productivity and attorneys’ fees, the government should move carefully and only when based on solid foundation that there is in fact illegal behavior,” he said.

The Obama administration has made workplace investigations a key part of its efforts to enforce immigration laws, unlike the Bush administration, which relied more on high-profile raids and worker arrests.

In all, ICE has initiated more than 2,300 employer audits since the start of the federal fiscal year in October. It conducted 2,196 audits during the 2010 fiscal year, leading to the criminal arrests of 196 employers and 119 convictions.

see below for more info on S-Comm

GEORGIA Secure Communities

34 counties of 159 21%

The statewide cumulative number of convicted criminal aliens administratively arrested or booked into ICE custody. 2,889

The statewide cumulative number of convicted criminal aliens removed from the U.S. 1,715

November 17, 2009 Clayton -DeKalb -Gwinnett

September 8, 2010 Cobb -Fulton -Muscogee

October 13, 2010 Hall

November 16, 2010 Cherokee

December 14, 2010 Forsyth

January 19, 2011 Henry- Rockdale -Spalding

February 15, 2011 Barrow- Newton- Walton

March 15, 2011 Chatham- Coweta- Fayette- Glynn- Troup

March 22, 2011 Houston

April 5, 2011 Colquitt- Lowndes

April 12, 2011 Carroll –Douglas- Paulding

May 17, 2011 Bartow- Floyd -Polk

June 14, 2011 Clarke- Habersham- Jackson- Pickens

Source: ICE

Published on NumbersUSA (http://www.numbersusa.com/content)

Georgia House Members Send Letter to ICE Requesting Full Participation in Secure Communities

By cchmielenski

Created 10/15/2010 - 12:56pm

Homepage Teaser:

Seven Members from the Georgia House delegation have sent a letter to Immigration and Customs Enforcement asking the agency to implement its Secure Communities program throughout the state. Under Secure Communities, fingerprints taken by local law enforcement agents under normal booking procedures are shared with the federal government who can then provide a criminal history along with immigration status.

Friday, October 15, 2010 - 12:56

Seven Members from the Georgia House delegation have sent a letter to Immigration and Customs Enforcement asking the agency to implement its Secure Communities program throughout the state. Under Secure Communities, fingerprints taken by local law enforcement agents under normal booking procedures are shared with the federal government who can then provide a criminal history along with immigration status.

The seven Congressmen to sign the letter include: Rep. Tom Price, Rep. Paul Broun, Rep. Phil Gingrey, Rep. Tom Graves, Rep. Jack Kingston, Rep. John Linder, and Rep. Lynn Westmoreland.

In the letter, the Congressmen wrote:

Priority in the deployment process is being given to high risk jurisdictions, and a number of localities in the State of Georgia have already been activated as a part of Secure Communities. We are asking you to implement the Secure Communities initiative throughout the entire State of Georgia as soon as possible. Doing so will improve public safety for all Georgians before 2013. Also, we are requesting an up-to-date list of all localities in which Secure Communities has been activates or not activated in the state.

According to a recent DHS report, nearly 400,000 criminal illegal aliens were deported in fiscal year 2010 as a result of Secure Communities.

News

Feds to Stop Detaining Asylum Seekers

December 16, 2009

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Filed at 3:09 p.m. ET

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Obama administration says it will stop detaining asylum seekers who have a credible fear of persecution in their home countries.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement director John Morton says beginning Jan. 4, asylum seekers can temporarily enter the U.S. if they meet certain criteria.

They must establish their identities, they cannot be dangerous or a flight risk, and they must have a credible fear of persecution or torture.

Currently, foreigners who come to the U.S. without valid documents can be immediately deported. Many are detained while their asylum requests are considered.

Policy Reforms Needed to Ensure the

Humane Treatment of Immigrant Detainees

___________________________________________________________________________

BELL GARDENS SUN

By Congresswoman Lucille Roybal-Allard

November 12, 2009

http://egpnews.com/?p=13798

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano recently announced the results of a sweeping review of America's immigrant detention system. Acknowledging its shortcomings, she pledged that her Department would implement a series of reforms to improve the management and oversight of this sprawling network of facilities. While I commend the Secretary's determination to chart a bold new course in the treatment of detained immigrants, I remain convinced that administrative changes alone are insufficient to safeguard the rights and wellbeing of the more than 300,000 people who pass through our immigration jails every year. Congressional action is urgently needed to restore decency and transparency to our scandal-plagued detention system.

On any given night, more than 30,000 immigrants go to sleep in detention centers across America. Included in their growing ranks are asylum seekers, torture survivors, children, pregnant women and the elderly. Many have sought legal assistance only to discover that none is available; others have requested medical treatment and failed to receive it; still others have tried to contact loved ones and found that even the telephones don't work.

Even more troubling is the long list of immigrants who have succumbed to preventable medical conditions in detention. Hui Lui Ng, a Chinese computer engineer, Boubacar Bah, a tailor from Guinea, and Tanveer Ahmad, a Pakistani cabdriver-three victims profiled in the media-are part of a growing list of detainees who have died in agony because their desperate appeals for medical attention were ignored until it was too late.

I support Secretary Napolitano's intention to implement a stronger regulatory framework to prevent the reoccurrence of these tragedies. She wants to end the prevailing "one size fits all" approach to detention by individually screening each detainee upon arrival. Those who suffer from serious medical conditions will receive the treatment they require and those who don't pose a flight risk or constitute a threat to their communities will be placed in supervision programs that offer an effective alternative to incarceration.

I am also encouraged by the Secretary's efforts to strengthen oversight of the detention system. By hiring 50 specialists to monitor the largest detention centers and by eventually placing officials at every facility where immigrants are held, she hopes to exercise more direct control over this patchwork system. To that end, she is also centralizing management of the Department's contracts with its state, local and private partners. Where the treatment of detainees fails to meet expectations, contractors will be penalized and, in extreme cases, their agreements with the federal government will be cancelled.

While I applaud these sensible reforms, I also believe that Congress has an important role to play in reshaping our detention policies. I introduced the Immigration Oversight and Fairness Act in the House of Representatives to strengthen and codify detention regulations and to help ensure unaccompanied children are treated compassionately. My bill would also guarantee every detainee access to medical care and legal advice.

The case for enacting enforceable standards is clear. Our existing regulations have repeatedly failed to protect the most vulnerable detainees. Giving these rules the full force of law will bring new accountability to a system which has proven incapable of policing itself. Enforceable standards will also ensure immigrants are afforded the same basic level of treatment at every detention center-from the largest federal facility to the most remote county jail.

Our detention system faces great challenges but under Secretary Napolitano's capable leadership, it appears at last to be moving in the right direction. I welcome her thoughtful approach to this complex issue and remain committed to advancing legislation which will further our common goals. With the adoption of these reforms, America's immigration jails-long a national embarrassment-will finally reflect our laws and our values.

Beyond Hutto: "Pushing Back" Against Immigrant Detention Centers

An interview with Bob Libal and Lauren Martin

By DC Tedrow

Z-Magazine November 2009

In response to mounting criticism, the Obama administration announced in August that the United States would begin reforming the government's immigrant detention system. Although details are sketchy and changes will be introduced slowly, one immediate shift was the announcement that Immigrant and Customs Enforcement (ICE) will no longer send immigrant families to the T. Don Hutto Residential Center in Taylor, Texas.

That the Administration mentioned Hutto specifically is not surprising. News media, religious groups, and progressive activists have criticized the facility for locking up children ever since Hutto began detaining families in May 2006. In 2007, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) filed a lawsuit against ICE on behalf of families detained at Hutto, which led to improved conditions. After investigating the prison in June 2009, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) announced that, even though conditions had improved since the ACLU lawsuit, the continued detention of asylum seekers and their children at Hutto violated principles of international law.

In addition to the ACLU and the IACHR, Grassroots Leadership and Texans United for Families have helped lead the charge against the facility. Bob Libal is the Texas coordinator for Grassroots Leadership, a southern-based social justice organization taking on private prisons. Lauren Martin is a member of Texans United for Families, an Austin-based coalition working to end family detention.

TEDROW: Talk about the history of the T. Don Hutto facility.

LIBAL: Basically, Hutto was a medium-security prison that Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) took over in the late 1990s. It was a failing private prison that couldn't retain much of a population base. CCA had previously contracted with U.S. Marshals and the ICE, but both contracts had fallen through. Then, in the spring of 2006, they reopened it with the announcement that they were going to be detaining immigrant families, including small children, for ICE.

In August, the Obama administration announced that the U.S. government would no longer be holding immigrant families at facilities such as Hutto. Why?

LIBAL: I think they made this decision because of political pressure, because organizers had made Hutto a lightning rod of controversy. The decision basically takes family detention policy back to pre-9/11 levels. Before the announcement, there were two family detention centers in the country: Hutto and the Berks County Detention Center in Pennsylvania, which has 80 beds. Last year, ICE proposed three new family detention centers around the country.

The announcement means that they will be either transferring families to Berks or releasing them on alternatives-to-detention programs. Berks is full right now: it's at capacity, so in reality they're releasing families into alternatives-to-detention programs or releasing them with notices to appear at their immigration hearings. They also are taking the new family detention centers off the table. I think it's a pretty substantial victory. The New York Times described it as the first major departure on immigration policy from the Bush administration.

Is this going back to the idea of "catch and release"?

Libal: I've heard John Morten, who is the Assistant Secretary for Homeland Security, say, "No, we're not returning to that." But I think the people who are getting out of Hutto are getting out on notices to appear. I think it's still unclear how this sort of processing is going to take place. Say you're apprehended or apply for asylum on the border. What happens to you? Are you then released into an alternatives-to-detention program or are you sent to Berks and then released? We don't know that yet. What it does mean is that, at any one time, there are a lot fewer families in detention.

Martin: I think it's important to differentiate, too, between "catch and release," which is really vague and could mean anything, and the bond and parole procedures that have been in place and are available to many immigrant detainees. That's often what families are released on. There is some degree of supervision and they also pay quite a bit of money to participate in those programs. So "release" is misleading. Just because they're not in Hutto, there are still other forms of institutional supervision. Alternatives-to-detention programs have a wide range of forms of supervision. The justification for opening Hutto was that they needed to move from "catch and release" to "catch and return." There's a presumption of illegality—that all these families would be released into the population and abscond.

Hutto has not been shut down, though. It's been converted into a detention center for women, correct?

Martin: Yes. After the legal settlement every 30 days they have to review whether a specific family qualifies to be released on bond or parole. Once they started doing that, they released families a lot faster, which made the population drop. So they filled Hutto with immigrant women. As families are released, it will be filled completely with immigrant women without children.

Will Grassroots Leadership continue to focus on Hutto?

Martin: Texans United for Families is trying to figure out what the announcement really means, so we've been staying in close contact with Washington, DC-based advocates who have closer relationships with ICE, and the attorneys in the lawsuit who are actually representing folks at Hutto, to see what's going on there and to make sure that everything continues to go well. The next project is to figure out how to use the energy from the victory—because it is still a victory, even if it's a partial one.

Do you think there's a climate for expanding this message to include more than families? To target detention itself?

Martin: I think so. There have been a lot of really successful campaigns in the United States around other family-related issues, not necessarily family detention. In New York, Families for Freedom is a close ally of ours and they've been organizing around the Child Citizen Protection Act, which basically says if someone has a citizen child, then the immigration judge has some discretion to not deport the parents. Right now, in many situations, judges don't get to say, "This person clearly has family ties, they have a few kids who need them, so it would be better not to deport this person."

Family unity is supposed to be the backbone of our immigration system. However heteronormative a family it may be, it is still what both conservatives and liberals think of as the touchstone of the immigration system. So that's a really powerful discourse that we can use to expand to other injustices in the immigration system.

Libal: We will certainly continue to draw attention to the broader issues of immigrant detention and private prisons. I believe that we will continue to draw attention to Hutto, but it is important to think strategically about how we can best push back on that system.

One of the lessons of the Hutto campaign is you can target a facility to make it very infamous, which the movement did to Hutto, but at the same time, it was drawing attention to a broader policy, which is family detention. I think we've pushed back family detention policy. Hopefully we'll be able to do that again by targeting a facility and pushing back on mandatory detention, secure communities, or any of these other really horrendous programs that lead to the incarceration of immigrants on a mass scale.

Secretary Napolitano and ICE Assistant Secretary Morton Announce New Immigration Detention Reform Initiatives

Release Date: October 6, 2009

For Immediate Release
Office of the Press Secretary
Contact: 202-282-8010

Immigration Detention Overview and Recommendations

Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Janet Napolitano and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Assistant Secretary John Morton today announced new initiatives as part of the Department's ongoing immigration detention reform efforts—enhancing the security and efficiency of ICE's nationwide detention system while prioritizing the health and safety of detainees.

"These new initiatives will improve accountability and safety in our detention facilities as we continue to engage in smart and effective enforcement of our nation's immigration laws," said Secretary Napolitano.

"These new reforms will establish consistent standards across the country, prioritizing risk, strengthening oversight and increasing efficiency in our immigration detention system," Assistant Secretary John Morton said.

The reform efforts address the seven major components of the detention system outlined in a comprehensive review conducted by Dora Schriro, the former ICE Office of Detention Policy and Planning Director, over the past several months, focusing on greater federal oversight, specific attention to detainee care, and uniformity at detention facilities.

Each of the reforms announced today are expected to be budget neutral or result in cost savings through reduced reliance on contractors to perform key federal duties and additional oversight of all contracts.

Secretary Napolitano and Assistant Secretary Morton also announced that Phyllis Coven will serve as Acting Director of the Office of Detention Policy and Planning while a nationwide search for a permanent director is underway. Coven, who has 17 years of experience in the federal government and international community, comes to ICE from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services. Throughout her career, Coven has chaired numerous detention initiatives at the Department of Justice and the former Immigration and Naturalization Service.

To better manage all detainee populations, ICE will centralize all contracts under ICE headquarters' supervision. Currently, the majority of more than 300 active contracts are negotiated and managed by disparate ICE field offices. ICE will also aggressively monitor and enforce contract performance in order to ensure contractors comply with terms and conditions—especially those related to conditions of confinement.

To advance the effective use of alternatives to detention (ATD), ICE will develop an assessment tool to identify aliens suitable for ATD and will submit a plan to Congress this fall to implement an ATD program nationwide. ICE will continue to work with the Department of Justice to expedite the adjudication of ATD cases to reduce costs.

To better manage detention operations, ICE will develop a risk assessment and custody classification, which will enable detainees to be placed in an appropriate facility. ICE will pursue detention strategies based on assessed risk and reduce costs by exploring the use of converted hotels, nursing homes and other residential facilities.

To better manage special populations and improve program management, ICE will house non-criminal, non-violent populations, such as newly arriving asylum seekers, at facilities commensurate with risk and expand programs available including legal support services.

To enhance detainee medical care, ICE will devise and implement a medical classification system that will improve awareness of an individual detainee's medical and mental health conditions from the time the individual first enters detention.

To ensure accountability and reduce reliance on contractors, ICE will more than double the number of federal personnel providing onsite oversight at the facilities where the majority of detainees are housed. ICE will also accelerate efforts to provide an online search system for attorneys, family members and others to locate detained aliens.

On Aug. 6, 2009, Assistant Secretary Morton announced the first steps in ICE's detention overhaul—including the creation of the Office of Detention Policy and Planning, the formation of two advisory groups comprised of local and national stakeholders and the establishment of the Office of Detention Oversight, an independent apparatus to inspect facilities and investigate detainee grievances.

Secretary Napolitano and ICE Assistant Secretary Morton Announce New Immigration Detention Reform Initiatives

Release Date: October 6, 2009