After years in immigration purgatory, a settlement approved yesterday will allow legal permanent residents across southern California to finally have the opportunity to have their citizenship applications processed.

The Los Angeles Times covered the settlement, which came after the ACLU of Southern California and the National Immigration Law Center filed a lawsuit in 2007 on behalf of hundreds of legal immigrants who satisfied the requirements to become U.S. citizens but were left in limbo for months or years due to slow processing of a background check called the FBI name check.

Since 2003, there have been systemic delays in naturalization because the government changed the FBI name check procedure so that applicants’ names are checked not only against the names of suspects and targets of investigations, but also innocent people who have been in contact with the FBI, such as witnesses, victims and people who have applied for security clearances. As a result, the FBI name check process takes much longer than the six months mandated under federal law. Furthermore, the government does not provide any reasons, so the applicants have no way of fighting these delays.

"The naturalization process has been a bureaucratic nightmare for so many permanent residents who did everything right to become citizens of this country," said Jennie Pasquarella, staff attorney with the ACLU of Southern California in the Los Angeles Times article. "This restores the dream of citizenship and ensures that the government will be held accountable."

Under the terms of the settlement, the FBI and the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) have agreed to process 90 percent of the backlogged applications in the next six months. In addition, the suit requires that the FBI and USCIS report their progress in reducing the backlogs in naturalization applications.

(Originally posted on The Marietta Daily Journal Online)

The Cobb County Board of Commissioners voted Tuesday to accept Sheriff Neil Warren's recommendation on the re-signing of the 287(g) Agreement with Immigration and Customs Enforcement. They should reconsider this decision.

The 287(g) program delegates immigration enforcement authority to specific local police agencies. The Cobb Sheriff's Office is one of the five agencies in Georgia that has entered into a Memorandum of Agreement with Immigration and Customs Enforcement to participate in enforcement of federal civil immigration laws.

Though initially intended as a measure to combat violent crime and other felonies such as gang activity and drug trafficking, 287(g) programs have in fact undermined public safety, as immigrant communities, fearful of being deported, hesitate to report crime. The Major Cities Chiefs Association and the Police Foundation have both found that participating in 287(g) programs has harmed community policing efforts.

This trend is documented by the ACLU of Georgia report released Monday titled: "Terror and Isolation in Cobb: How Unchecked Police Power under 287(g) had Torn Families Apart and Threatened Public Safety." The report is based on interviews with 10 community members affected by the program as well as five community advocates and attorneys based in Cobb.

As the report documents, in Cobb specifically, there has been a widespread increase in fear to report crime and mistrust in law enforcement as a result of 287(g). Immigrants feel afraid to seek assistance from law enforcement, even when they are the victims of crimes themselves. This factor poses a public safety threat to all county residents. One community member named Joanna mentioned to us that she once even put out the fire in her kitchen herself, because she was afraid to call 911.

In addition, law enforcement agencies that reallocate limited resources towards cracking down on violations such as driving without a license or lack of insurance may have scarce means left with which to combat crimes of violence and other felonies. In Cobb, immigrants disappear into detention for violations such as having a broken tail light or tinted windows on their car. In 2008, Cobb County turned over 3,180 detainees to ICE for deportation. Of those, 2,180, about 69 percent, were arrested for traffic violations.

In addition, the program has encouraged and served as a justification for racial profiling and human rights violations by some police acting as immigration agents. As the ACLU of Georgia report shows, Cobb officers have misused the power granted to them under the agreement by engaging in racial profiling of Latino communities and detaining individuals in the Cobb jail for unconstitutionally prolonged time periods. A telling example is the case of Jonathan, a Latino man who was shopping for jewelry for his girlfriend at Macy's when he was followed by a security guard who then called the Cobb Police. Jonathan was detained by the officer without being informed about the reason. He was subsequently charged with loitering and deported. The loitering charge was later dismissed by the district attorney without a hearing. His family now lives in constant fear of the "seemingly unlimited power of the police to arrest a Latino person for any or no reason at all."

There is currently no meaningful check in place to ensure that local law enforcement do not abuse the program by intimidating and racially profiling immigrant communities in Cobb. A Government Accountability Office investigation earlier this year found ICE was not exercising proper oversight over local or state agencies. This problem is compounded in Georgia, as there is no state legislation banning racial profiling and mandating accountability and transparency for law enforcement.

The minor changes in the program recently announced by the Department of Homeland Security make no serious attempt at discouraging profiling or reducing its negative impact on public safety. In addition, the new MOA actually takes a step backwards in the area of transparency, as it attempts to further shield 287(g) from public scrutiny by declaring that documents related to 287(g) are no longer public records.

In late August, more than 521 organizations across the country, many of which in Georgia, called on the Obama Administration to end 287(g), citing the serious problems associated with the program, including racial profiling. The groups were recently joined in this demand by the Congressional Hispanic Caucus. In addition, in a recent letter to the Obama administration, the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination urged the administration and Congress to do more to end racial profiling by reconsidering the 287(g) program.

The ACLU of Georgia was joined Monday by faith and community leaders from Cobb and around the state in reiterating this demand. 287(g) programs waste local resources and hinder local police ability to effectively protect public safety in Cobb and other communities around the State. It is time for Cobb to walk away from 287(g).

Read the ACLU of Georgia's report on Cobb County here.

The newest criticism of the already widely condemned 287(g) program, under which state and local law enforcement agencies gain federal immigration enforcement authority, comes from a U.S. government task force advising the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) on border issues. The Southwest Border Task Force, comprised of “law enforcement, elected officials and national security experts from around the country” selected by DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano, has recommended that the government scale down the 287(g) program. 

We hope this paves the way for the federal government to acknowledge finally that the 287(g) program is deeply flawed as advocates, experts and many police have repeatedly stated. Criticism of the program has continued to grow since July when the Obama administration announced that it would expand the Bush-era program without instituting significant reforms. Over 500 organizations sent a letter to the president demanding an end to the program on the grounds that it has been misused by local law enforcement officials, like Sheriff Joe Arpaio of Arizona, to promote racial profiling. 

Last week, the Congressional Hispanic Caucus sent a letter  to the Obama administration saying “the misuse of the 287(g) program by its current participants has rendered it ineffective and dangerous to community safety” and calling for its immediate termination. The letter also stated that the program is alarmingly mismanaged with insufficient oversight, increases exposure to liability and litigation, and undermines the law enforcement’s relationship with the communities they protect.

Some police departments are abandoning the program. Two Massachusetts law enforcement agencies – the Framingham police and the Barnstable County sheriff’s department have opted out.  In explaining Framingham’s decision to withdraw, Framingham Police Chief Steven Carl noted that the 287(g) program hurts the police’s relationship in the community. County officials of Middlesex County, New Jersey decided not to enter into the program this past week, saying that “By taking on additional responsibility for no additional compensation as well as the increased liability as called for under the federal government's 287(g) program, the county would not be acting in the best interests of Middlesex County's residents.”

DHS should take this opportunity to carefully consider the problems with 287(g) identified by informed critics around the country and by its own handpicked advisors. An honest and thorough review will reveal that the costs of 287(g) – in resources, increased racial profiling, and decreased public safety – far outweigh any benefits.

So much of what human rights advocates do is try to make the invisible visible. The more marginal and vulnerable the victims and the more remote the geographic location, the harder it is to do.

That, in a nutshell, is the goal and challenge of the San Diego ACLU’s report on border crossing deaths, Humanitarian Crisis: Migrant Deaths at the U.S. – Mexico Border, which was released today and is well reported by Spencer Hsu in The Washington Post. Filmmaker John Carlos Frey also uncovers the crisis at the border in his new documentary The 800 Mile Wall.

Marking the 15th anniversary of the misguided border strategy known as Operation Gatekeeper, the report makes visible the following:

1. In the past 15 years, as many as 5,600 people have died.
2. These deaths were anticipated in the design of the U.S. border strategy, which deliberately pushes migrants away from inhabited areas into harsh desert and mountainous terrains.
3. The rate of deaths has increased despite the economic decline and a drop in migration.
4. The number of rescues has decreased despite a massive increase in Border Patrol agents.

Americans are repelled by injustice. We don’t want to contemplate the awful deaths from dehydration of men, women, and children crossing the desert—not a few hours' drive from lovely vacation oases like San Diego, Scottsdale, and San Antonio. This cuts both ways. On the one hand, we don’t want to think about it so we put it out of our minds. On the other, when confronted with these realities and the policies responsible for them, we want these problems solved and our lawmakers to make them go away.

Today’s report offers solutions. Starting immediately, the U.S. government can shift more of the existing resources to search and rescue. In short order, the government can better empower nongovernmental humanitarian organizations already aiding in rescue and recovery efforts, create a binational hotline for family members looking for lost loved ones, and improve its tracking of data on deaths.

Ultimately, what is needed is the decency to recognize this problem as a humanitarian crisis and the will to implement more sensible, humane immigration policies that allow migration to come through the ports of entry.