Secure Communities (S-Comm)—a federal immigration-enforcement program being implemented by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)—has become the subject of a nationwide controversy. In jurisdictions where S-Comm has been activated, any time an individual is arrested and booked into a local jail for any reason, his or her fingerprints are electronically run through ICE's immigration database. This allows ICE to identify noncitizens—including lawful immigrants and permanent residents—and potentially to initiate deportation proceedings against them. Because it targets people at the time of arrest, S-Comm captures people who will never be charged with a state crime—including crime victims, witnesses, and individuals subjected to unconstitutional arrests.
Local community members and officials across the country have raised concerns about S-Comm's impacts on civil liberties, noting among other things that it (1) deters immigrants from reporting crimes and otherwise receiving equal protection of the laws; (2) creates the risk of unlawful detention without criminal charges or a hearing; and (3) invites racial profiling by state and local law enforcement:
ICE has failed to offer any meaningful responses to these serious civil liberties concerns. Instead, it has vowed to press ahead with the program and has done so with great speed and minimal transparency. Since S-Comm was first launched in 2008, ICE has expanded the program to hundreds of localities across the country, and it claims to be on track to deploy S-Comm in every county jail by 2013. In response to advocates' and local governments' concerns, ICE has provided vague and inconsistent information about how the program operates and whether local jurisdictions will be forced to participate. Despite the program's professed goal of targeting "the most dangerous criminal aliens" for removal, a very large percentage of the individuals identified and deported under S-Comm have been minor offenders and people with no criminal charges or convictions. ICE's own data—obtained through the above-mentioned FOIA lawsuit—show that nationwide, just over a quarter (26%) of all those deported under S-Comm from the program's start in 2008 to June 2010 were classified by ICE as "non-criminals," meaning they had no criminal convictions. 79% of those deported were either non-criminals or were picked up (and not necessarily charged or convicted) for lower level offenses. Only 21% were charged with or convicted of a serious felony.
Neither Congress nor other components of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) have acted to oversee S-Comm's implementation. The ACLU has called on the DHS Office of Inspector General to audit the program, evaluating both its compliance with ICE's stated priorities and its vulnerability to racial profiling and other abuse. Until meaningful and transparent safeguards, data-tracking, and adequate complaint and oversight mechanisms are implemented, S-Comm will pose real concerns for the civil liberties of U.S. citizens, immigrants and people of color. Unless and until ICE meets the above prerequisites, it should halt expansion of S-Comm and undertake a thorough assessment of the program's efficacy and compliance with constitutional requirements. The ACLU also supports efforts of local jurisdictions to protect their communities from the civil liberties concerns that S-Comm raises.
[1] See Letter to John Morton, Assistant Secretary of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, from the ACLU et al. (June 23, 2010), available at http://www.aclu.org/files/assets/Detainers_revised.pdf.