This is an analytic piece on what may be the dynamics behind the Obama administration's double-speak on the Secure Communities program. The program requires that fingerprints of individuals arrested by any local police - which are already automatically sent to the FBI - be shared by the FBI with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to determine whether the person may be illegally in the country. This has already resulted in increased deportations, mostly of people without criminal records or only misdemeanors, not felonies, the stated focus of the program. (See our post of Aug. 19 NY Times editorial, "Immigration Bait and Switch"
Stewart J. Lawrence: Obama Reneges on Key Agreement with Immigration Advocates: "... now it appears that the administration has reneged on key parts of its deal with pro-immigration activists. Why? Largely because career Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials who are heavily invested in the agency's expanding enforcement empire are refusing to go along. These officials don't want to suspend deportation proceedings against selected classes of immigrants, like the DREAM kids, or even to refocus the program narrowly on “criminal” aliens - no matter what the ICE leadership says. And because of their near-revolt, it appears that senior ICE officials have reversed themselves, and will require that all local jurisdictions participate in Secure Communities, whether they actually want to or not." October 5, 2010, CounterPunch
The MexicoBlog of the Americas Program, a fiscally sponsored program of the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR), is written by Laura Carlsen. I monitor and analyze international press on Mexico, with a focus on security, immigration, human rights and social movements for peace and justice, from a feminist perspective. And sometimes I simply muse.
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