Posted on 08/18/2010 6:11:33 AM PDT by La Lydia
Secure Communities, an immigration enforcement program created under President George W. Bush and now being greatly expanded by President Obama, is billed as an effort to catch and deport “the worst of the worst,” the violent criminals, drug and gun smugglers, gang members and other dangerous aliens. That would be excellent, if true. It doesn’t seem to be.The Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law, the Center for Constitutional Rights, a public-interest legal organization, and the National Day Laborer Organizing Network analyzed arrest and deportation statistics and other data on Secure Communities they obtained through the Freedom of Information Act. The records, covering the program from its inception in October 2008 through June 2010, lend disturbing credence to fears voiced by immigrant advocates and some law-enforcement officials.
The program requires agencies to automatically run fingerprints through federal immigration databases for anyone they arrest. Critics warned that it would be an indiscriminate dragnet — ensnaring illegal immigrants without criminal records, and encouraging racial profiling. Sheriff Michael Hennessey of San Francisco objected to Secure Communities, saying it targeted too many noncriminals and would have a dangerous “chilling effect” on the willingness of communities to work with local law enforcement. It turns out the critics were right...
The program now appears to be quite different from that: an effort to yoke local police into a broad campaign of civil immigration enforcement, maximizing the detention and deportation of the people whom Mr. Obama says he wants to give a chance to pay their debt to society and earn their right to become Americans.
Secure Communities won’t make the country more secure, not the way it is working. Police departments that don’t want to participate should be able to opt out. The Obama administration needs to fix it or jettison it.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
If you read the story, it is obvious that this program is hugely successful in ridding our country of illegal aliens.
So they start a program designed to rid us of the worst criminals infiltrating our border with Mexico and they’re accused of racial profiling. Should they be looking for Swedes? Tutsis? Samoans? Racial profiling is an important investigatory tool the use of which should be energetically defended.
Yes, it is.
What don't they get about, if you come into our country without permission, you've committed a crime and are, therefore a criminal.
so....the New York Times is going to bat here for the “Worst of the Worst” of criminal illegals?
Pretty much.
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