Secure Communities Program Also Snares U.S. Citizens

Bugs n the Secure Communities computer system have caused Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to detain U.S. citizens.

In a spate of recent cases across the country, American citizens have been confined in local jails after federal immigration agents, acting on flawed information from Department of Homeland Security databases, instructed the police to hold them for investigation and possible deportation.  Julia Preston/New York Times

United States citizens can also be tagged in a Secure Communities fingerprint check because of flukes in the department’s databases. Unlike the federal criminal databases administered by the F.B.I., Homeland Security records include all immigration transactions, not just violations. An immigrant who has always maintained legal status, including those who naturalized to become American citizens, can still trigger a fingerprint match.  Julia Preston/New York Times

The Secure Communities Program has been a lightning rod of criticism for the Obama Administration.  If U.S. citizens are also falling into this net, then more people will start noticing this very flawed system.  Secure Communities is a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) program designed to identify immigrants in U.S. jails who are deportable under immigration law.  Under Secure Communities, participating jails submit arrestees’ fingerprints not only to criminal databases, but to immigration databases as well, allowing Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) access to information on individuals held in jails.  Unlike other ICE-local partnerships, Secure Communities gives ICE a technological, not physical, presence in prisons and jails.  IPC.

The New York Times article gives two examples of U.S. citizens detained by ICE.  One U.S. Citizen spent 4 days in jail in Santa Monica, CA, after being arrested on a $10 shoplifting charge. 

• The U.S. Citizen had triggered a positive match in the Homeland Security Department databases, A.C.L.U. lawyers discovered, because immigration officials had failed once before to recognize his citizenship, mistakenly deporting him to Mexico in 1996.  His records were not corrected.  Julia Preston/New York Times        

The Administration should immediately examine the whole Secure Communities Program to determine if this program is meeting the needs of our society.