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Newsday Op-Ed: Secure Communities Redefines “Serious Crime”

Posted August 27, 2010 by Ted Hesson
Categories: Federal Immigration Policy

Two months ago, Long Island Wins broke the news that New York State officials had agreed to implement the immigration enforcement program Secure Communities, a program that requires local police to submit the fingerprints of anyone arrested to a federal immigration database.

While the program purportedly focuses on “serious criminals,” records recently obtained from US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) show that, from October 2008 until June of this year, a quarter of those deported under Secure Communities had no criminal record. In addition, 79 percent of those deported under the program during that time period were not criminals or had committed low-level crimes.

Citing some of these telling statistics, Kavitha Rajagopalan, a senior fellow at the World Policy Institute, criticizes the program in a Newsday op-ed this morning.

Here’s an excerpt:

The program enables police to collect fingerprints of anyone picked up on any offense and run them through federal immigration databases. The intent is to identify and deport major criminals who are here illegally. But of the 47,000 unauthorized immigrants deported under the program so far, 79 percent had no criminal record and were picked up on minor offenses - traffic violations, trespassing, disorderly behavior and the like.

Immigrant rights advocates say the program will not only contribute to racial profiling and alienate immigrant communities from law enforcement, but will divert valuable public resources away from going after criminals who pose real threats to society.

For many citizens, illegal is illegal, and whether an unauthorized immigrant is cited for speeding or accused of murder, his first and greatest crime was to enter or stay on in the country illegally. In a recent study, 70 percent of New Yorkers polled said that illegal immigrants in the state are a problem.

But who, exactly, poses the problem? According to a 2007 study conducted by the Council on Foreign Relations, unauthorized immigration is economically advantageous to U.S. employers and the U.S. economy as a whole, since it offers low-cost labor in a variety of lines of work, as well as tax revenues from people who make limited use of public resources. New York State’s estimated 550,000 undocumented immigrants are not just agricultural laborers and domestic workers, but entrepreneurs, caregivers and professionals. Many live middle-class lives.

They know they’ve broken immigration laws, but many see themselves as contributing members of a diverse society, pursuing the American dream and tacitly accepted by the legal immigrants and citizens with whom they live and work.

Of course, widespread illegal immigration has led to increases in human trafficking, cross-border drug trade, and wage and physical abuse of people who have no legal recourse. No system that systematically violates human rights or destabilizes society by enabling widespread criminal enterprise can or should be tolerated.

That may be why an increasing number of Americans support comprehensive immigration reform. But as we continue to discuss how and what to reform, we must first confront why our society enables and our economy relies on unauthorized labor.

Roughly a month ago, I reported on the case of Sandra Punin-Castillo, an undocumented immigrant in Patchogue who was driving without a license, which led Suffolk County police to contact immigration authorities. Punin-Castillo, who had been in the car with her one-year-old son, was separated from her son—an American citizen—and placed in an immigration detention facility that day.

If implemented in New York State, the deportation statistics from Secure Communities strongly suggest that the program will lead to an increase in deportations for low-level crimes, like that of Punin-Castillo, and not focus on the oft-cited mission of the program—netting serious criminal offenders.

Tags : newsday, patchogue, sandra punin-castillo, secure communities

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