Federal government takes a hard look at local police enforcement of immigration law

A federal program that deputized dozens of state and local police agencies to enforce immigration law is coming under new scrutiny in Washington, where government investigators say the Department of Homeland Security has failed to properly supervise its local partners or make clear that they are to go after serious criminals, not people stopped for speeding or public urination.

The House Homeland Security Committee has scheduled a hearing on the program for Wednesday afternoon. Last summer, the committee requested a Government Accountability Office investigation of the program, known as 287(g), and now it's expecting to hear about those findings.

Committee chair Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., said he was concerned about accusations that the policing program has led to racial profiling, the Associated Press reported.

The GAO report found that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials had not clearly explained to their local partners that the program was supposed to target drug smugglers and other serious offenders. Instead, state and local law enforcement agencies have been stopping people for minor infractions and turning them over to ICE, according to the AP, which obtained an advance copy of the report.

The 287(g) arrangement gained particular notoriety from Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, who has paraded alleged illegal immigrants in chains and striped suits through downtown Phoenix. His actions recently led four members of Congress to call for an investigation.

Last week, Justice Strategies, a research and advocacy group, released its own scathing analysis, saying the immigration partnership takes local police away from their crime fighting mission. That assessment was echoed by the liberal Immigration Policy Center. The restrictionist Center for Immigration Studies, by contrast, has celebrated the program as a way to crack down on immigrant gangs.

Meanwhile Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano has called for her agency to review 287(g) among other ICE programs. The debate is sure to heat up as the findings unfold.

Tyche Hendricks, SF Chronicle

"Concerns arise over fast-track deportation program" F.A.

(This article goes into detail about a program that is intended to accelerate the deportation process. The critics of this program argue that it infringes on the detainees rights.)

Concerns arise over fast-track deportation program

Immigration officials say 'stipulated removal' saves the government money and gets immigrants out of detention sooner. Advocates fear deportees don't know their rights.

Los Angeles Times
By Anna Gorman
March 2, 2009

Federal authorities are increasingly deporting illegal immigrants through a fast-track program that bypasses court hearings, an effort by the federal government to save money, reduce backlogs and clear detention beds.

The number of detainees in California and across the nation who agreed to be deported without first seeing a judge jumped fivefold between 2004 and 2007, from 5,481 to nearly 31,554. In the first half of 2008, 17,445 speedy deportation orders were signed.

Nearly half of all such orders since 1999 were issued in three locations -- Lancaster; Los Fresnos, Texas, and Eloy, Ariz., according to federal data provided to the Stanford Law School Immigrants' Rights Clinic as part of a Freedom of Information Act request.

Attorneys, advocates and judges have raised concerns about the dramatic rise in fast-track deportations, saying they have resulted in many immigrants being deported without knowing their rights or understanding the consequences.

"That is everyone's underlying concern -- is there due process here?" said Gilbert T. Gembacz, a retired immigration judge in Los Angeles. "Are people getting a full explanation? Are they getting a case-by-case review of all their options? I don't think they are. I think they are being told, 'Hi. You're here illegally, and we are going to send you back.' "

Jayashri Srikantiah, the director of the Stanford clinic, which has sued the federal government to get more information, said some detainees are pressured to sign the deportation forms even though they may have defenses against deportation or be eligible for asylum or green cards. About 95% of the people who agreed to the speedy deportations since 1999 are not represented by attorneys, she said.

"We have people mostly who are in detention in remote locations, without lawyers, who are non-English speakers, and they are being asked to sign away their rights," Srikantiah said.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement authorities in Los Angeles counter that the program is voluntary and that deportation officers clearly explain to detainees their options, including the choice to see a judge. They said the program, known as "stipulated removal," saves the government money and prevents immigrants from having to stay in detention when they would probably be deported by a judge anyway.

If they agree to stipulated removal, they often can be returned to their native country within a few days or weeks. Challenging their deportation, however, could take months.

Among the recent detainees deported to Mexico with stipulated removal were two men, one who served time for robbery and another who spent years behind bars for assault and lewd and lascivious acts, immigration authorities said.

"It allows those who have no form of relief to return to their home country as quickly as possible," said Brian DeMore, the agency's Los Angeles field office director of detention and removal.

"It is a very economical way for us to do business because people don't spend a lot of time in detention."

Even though the fast-track deportations have been available for more than a decade, they were not widely used until 2004. Julie Myers, former head of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, said the agency wanted to speed up deportations and started looking at all the tools that Congress had made available.

"This was one that we believed had been underutilized," she said.

Myers said she was concerned, however, that the procedures for using stipulated removals differed from region to region and urged the government to make the process uniform across the nation.

In the Los Angeles area, immigration officials started using the process in large numbers after a large-scale protest at Mira Loma in 2005, when 950 federal detainees upset over delays in deportation proceedings refused to return to their barracks.

Officers at the Mira Loma detention center in Lancaster deport about 130 foreign nationals each month through stipulated removal, or about one-third of the total deportations from the facility. The vast majority of the local detainees who agree to stipulated removals, DeMore said, are criminals and are not eligible to stay in the United States.

At Lancaster, the detainees sign a form, in both English and Spanish, saying they understand they are giving up their right to a court hearing and that they may be prevented from legally returning to the U.S. for at least 10 years. That form is reviewed by a government attorney and then given to the judge, along with any other information available on the detainee, authorities said.

Catholic Charities of Los Angeles' Esperanza Immigrant Rights Project gives presentations three times a week at the Mira Loma facility informing detainees of their rights, but director Julianne Donnelly said she believes that many immigrants sign the forms before they have had a chance to attend a presentation.

Donnelly said immigrants are given the choice between fighting their cases in court and getting out of detention by agreeing to the stipulated removal.

"The basic message is, 'You want to get out of here quickly, sign here,' " she said.

One of the attorneys with the project, Sue Griffin, said a Honduran detainee with a criminal record told her that immigration authorities tried to get him to sign a stipulated removal but that he refused because he feared returning home. A Salvadoran detainee, she said, signed the form because he thought he had no hope of getting out of detention but withdrew it after Griffin told him he was probably eligible for bond.

Because fast-track deportation doesn't require detainees to appear in court, judges can devote more time to cases of immigrants who want to fight to stay in the United States, said Susan Eastwood, spokeswoman for the Executive Office for Immigration Review, which oversees the courts.

But San Francisco Immigration Judge Dana Leigh Marks, head of the National Assn. of Immigration Judges, said the program has not alleviated the large caseloads and long waits in California and across the nation.

Judges still must review the file to make sure that the right questions have been asked before issuing a deportation order, she said. And they must determine that the immigrants' request for an order was "voluntary, knowing and intelligent," according to the federal regulation.

"It's a drop in the bucket for how it affects savings and resources for immigration courts," she said.

anna.gorman@latimes.com

"Immigration rally focuses on families" F.A.

(Francisco Ayala: This news article discusses the impact that deportation is having a deep impact on many members of our community. It is very important to stress the extreme violence and fear that they experience on a daily basis.)

By Jamie Gumbrecht

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Sunday, March 01, 2009

About 3,000 people gathered in a Gwinnett County church on Saturday with a message for President Barack Obama: “Si, se puede.”

The “Yes, we can” chant that followed Obama during his presidential campaign was translated into Spanish during a rally at Tabernaculo de Atlanta in Norcross to push immigration reform. The crowd repeated the slogan, prayed and waved signs that said “Families United” and “Familias Unidas” as lawmakers spoke.

Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-Ill.) made the church his second stop on a 17-city “Family Unity” tour to encourage immigration reform. He said 5 million American children have a parent who has been deported or is in the process of being deported. Changing immigration policies will keep more families together, he said, and fulfill a campaign promise to the immigration community.

“Our patience is waning,” Gutierrez told the crowd. “It is time to end the deportation and the separation of families.”

Tanyia Lopez, a 12-year-old whose mother was deported to Mexico last year, told the crowd that split families are a problem for Latinos, and for all residents of a community. Tanyia now lives with her grandmother and 2-year-old sister in Cobb County, where they struggle to pay rent. “I wish I could see my mom again,” she said. “We need help.”

Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.) said he would help any way he can. He recounted asking his parents about segregation as a young man in Alabama, and how they told him, “That’s the way it is. Don’t get in the way. Don’t get in trouble.” He obeyed, until he heard the voice of Martin Luther King Jr. on the radio, and trouble became necessary, he said.

“It’s time for us all to get in trouble,” he told the crowd. “What our government is doing is not right, it is not fair, not just and it must be brought to an end. I will do all that I can to help.”

Adelina Nicholls, executive director of the Georgia Latino Alliance for Human Rights, said she was encouraged by the roar of the crowd at the church, by Gutierrez and Lewis’ attention to immigration issues around Atlanta, and by Obama’s selection of former Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano as Homeland Security secretary. Still, she worries. When Obama addressed Congress last week, there was no mention of immigration among his priorities.

“Immigration is a touchy issue,” Nicholls said. “We are all concerned about the silence.”

(Indiana) Senate passes immigration reform bill

Senate Bill 580 would suspend state business licenses of employers who, on
three separate occasions, knowingly hire undocumented workers. The legislation
would require all Indiana employers to use E-Verify, a federal electronic
system, to confirm their employees are, in fact, legal workers.


http://www.indystar.com/article/20090225/NEWS0501/902250349

Decrease in the number of reported undocumented immigrants in the United States

For the first time since 2005, there has been a decrease in the number of undocumented immigrants in the United States. The annual report released by the Immigration Department on Monday revealed that the number of undocumented immigrants who reside in the US in January 2008 was 11.6 million, compared to the previous year which was 11.8 million.

link to article: http://www.univision.com/content/content.jhtml?cid=1847896 and http://uspolitics.einnews.com/news/california-hispanic-immigration

link to a map that shows number of undocumented immigrants in each state:
http://www.univision.com/content/content.jhtml?cid=865801

State bill would put teeth in immigration screening

On Tuesday the State Senate (Georgia) passed a bill in where local governments that take illegal immigration lightly could lose state money.

Bill 20 states that failure to screen immigratns when hiring, and to verify an applicant's immigration status when giving welfare benefits will result in the cost the local government state funds or state-administered federal funds.

The measure, approved 37 to 9, also prohibits local governments from declaring themselves “sanctuary cities” for illegal immigrants. It directs local governments to cooperate with federal agents in enforcing immigration laws.

http://www.ajc.com/news/content/metro/stories/2009/02/24/georgia_immigration_bill.html

More on Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio

Here's a good story from Democracynow.org. I think it goes to the heart of what we have been talking about. The relationship between politics, the economy and immigration. If you want to hear the whole thing to to the website and download the show.

Arizona Sheriff Faces Civil Rights Probe, Allegations of Undermining Law Enforcement with Controversial Focus on Immigration

Sheriff Joe Arpaio of Arizona’s Maricopa County has forced prisoners to march through the streets of Phoenix dressed in just pink underwear, housed prisoners in tents in the searing heat, and appears on a Fox reality-TV show. Now he could be facing a federal investigation for civil rights abuses and a trial on charges of racially profiling Latinos. He’s also been accused of focusing on immigration enforcement at the expense of other law enforcement duties. [includes rush transcript–partial]

Guests:

Ryan Gabrielson, reporter with the East Valley Tribune. He’s just won the 2008 George Polk Award for Justice Reporting along with Paul Giblin for their five-part series on Sheriff Arpaio called “Reasonable Doubt.”

Salvador Reza, member of the Puente movement in Phoenix that grew out the spate of arrests and deportations under Sheriff Arpaio in 2007. He is part of a large group of organizations calling for a national demonstration in Phoenix next Saturday against 287(g) agreements.

AMY GOODMAN: The man who calls himself “America’s toughest sheriff” could be facing a federal investigation for possible civil rights abuses and a trial on charges of racially profiling Latinos. The chairpersons of four House committees called on Attorney General Eric Holder and Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano last Friday to investigate allegations of misconduct against Sheriff Joe Arpaio of Maricopa County in Arizona.

Earlier this month, in a move the New York Times called a “degrading spectacle,” Sheriff Arpaio forced 200 shackled prisoners to march through the streets of Phoenix from a local jail to his infamous tent city that’s surrounded by an electric fence. Many accused the sheriff of pulling a publicity stunt to promote his new reality television show on Fox, Smile, You’re Under Arrest!

At a news conference after the march, this is how Arpaio responded to questions about why he was humiliating prisoners.

SHERIFF JOE ARPAIO: Well, if you remember, if you’ve been around, about two years ago we marched about a thousand people in just their pink underwear from one jail to the other. So why should I keep this secret, because it will never be kept secret, if I open this tent city? In about two minutes, the whole world will know about it anyway. So I have nothing to hide. I have an open-door policy. I’m facing you right now. I’m telling you our policy. I have nothing to hide. I don’t sneak people in. The media constantly comes through these tents, from all over the world. We’ve had presidential candidates, four of them, running for president, that visited the tents.

AMY GOODMAN: That clip courtesy of A.J. Alexander.

In their strongly worded letter, Congress members John Conyers, Zoe Lofgren, Jerrold Nadler and Bobby Scott accuse the sheriff of “blatant disregard for the rights of Hispanic residents.” They say Latinos in Phoenix, citizens and non-citizens alike, “feel under siege” because of the sheriff’s raids.

In an interview with the East Valley Tribune newspaper last April, Sheriff Arpaio defended himself against mounting criticism of his actions.

SHERIFF JOE ARPAIO: We do know there’s many illegals in this county that have already been designated criminals. Just by coming here, they are criminals. Everybody forgets that. Illegal means that you’ve done something wrong, you’re illegal. But that goes by the wayside. See, nobody talks about that. They call me Nazi, and they have KKK. They have my picture next to Hitler, all these demonstrators. That’s alright. I can take it. But, you know, that is a little racist, too, against me. But they want to do it, let them do it.

AMY GOODMAN: Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio.

The sheriff’s tactics of public humiliation have come under greater fire since Maricopa County entered into what is known as a Section 287(g) agreement with the Department of Homeland Security. The agreement allows local law enforcement agencies to perform immigration enforcement functions. Last year, Phoenix Mayor Phil Gordon criticized Sheriff Arpaio for focusing on immigration enforcement at the expense of 40,000 outstanding felony arrest warrants. The letter from Congressman Conyers and others urges Homeland Security Secretary Napolitano to review and possibly terminate Maricopa County’s 287(g) agreements.

I’m joined right now by two guests in Phoenix, Arizona. Ryan Gabrielson is a reporter with the East Valley Tribune. He’s just won the 2008 George Polk Award for Justice Reporting, along with Paul Giblin, for their five-part series on Sheriff Arpaio called “Reasonable Doubt.” Salvador Reza is with us, as well, a member of the Puente movement in Phoenix that grew out of the spate of arrests and deportations under Sheriff Arpaio in 2007. He’s part of a large group of organizations calling for the national demonstration in Phoenix next Saturday against 287(g) agreements.

We welcome you both to Democracy Now!

President Obama is there, as well, today. He is going to be signing legislation there. And he will be accompanied by the Homeland Security director, Janet Napolitano, who is the former governor of Arizona, who has worked very closely with the sheriff.

Ryan Gabrielson, first of all, congratulations on your George Polk Award for this series. Can you talk about the latest controversy that involves the sheriff?

RYAN GABRIELSON: Well, the latest controversy is simply sort of stemming from the two years worth of controversy since the sheriff’s office began doing its real crackdown on illegal immigration. And the new investigations that are being called for seem to be sort of a fresh approach to what the FBI apparently—there’s a lot of evidence—was doing last year in response to the Phoenix mayor’s request for a federal investigation. Lots of people that we’ve talked to have said that federal agents, FBI agents, have been doing interviews for quite some time, potentially building a case concerning civil rights infractions. This simply would be a new approach from different agencies, from the Immigration and Customs Enforcement and from the Attorney General’s office itself.

AMY GOODMAN: I’m wondering if you can talk about the latest news, Salvador Reza, the latest controversy, and how your organizations came together.

SALVADOR REZA: Yes. In 2007, Sheriff Arpaio said for ICE-trained sheriffs to basically patrol an area under control of a Roger Sensing, which is a private individual. So this private individual was utilizing them to actually scour the neighborhoods. He would call in the license plates of people that were picked up for day labor. And basically the sheriffs would go and stop them and then start interrogating everybody. He deported over a hundred people like that. So, out of that, we started a series of demonstrations against Pruitt. But now, since then, he has done a series of sweeps every so often, like every two months or so, where he goes into the Latino neighborhoods and basically intimidates, terrorizes and basically destroys business in the area while he’s there.

Well, the latest stunt, media stunt, by Sheriff Arpaio was parading 240 or so prisoners from one facility to the other, which is now the tent city. It’s not that far, but he called all the media to make a spectacle of the situation, and basically segregating by alienation, by national origin, and by color, a whole set of inmates, which is actually a violation of the Constitution. But on top of that, he said it was to facilitate visit by the lawyers and by the Mexican consulate or the consulate of other country. But what happened, in essence, he actually took away days. Now they only can visit them three days.

So, you know, he’s constantly lying and basically putting himself on the public eye and basically dividing the whole community into pro- and anti-Arpaio forces. And he’s utilizing the 287(g) agreements so that he can basically go after gardeners, after corn vendors, after, you know, maids, and basically intimidating. Now he’s interrogating the whole board of supervisors, county board of supervisors, and accusing them of violating employer sanctions. So he’s out of control. And I think investigation is due. Not only investigation, they should freeze the 287(g) agreements with Sheriff Arpaio until, you know, this gets resolved. Janet Napolitano doesn’t seem to want to do that so far. I hope she changes her mind.

RYAN GABRIELSON: It’s true, the 287(g) agreement—

AMY GOODMAN: Ryan Gabrielson—

RYAN GABRIELSON: Oh, yes.

AMY GOODMAN: —the reporter with the East Valley Tribune.

RYAN GABRIELSON: —just distinctly changed the nature of the sheriff’s operations. Throughout 2006, when they first began this, they were scouring the rural roadways where human smugglers would use to get in and out of Maricopa County. Once they got the federal pact, they all of a sudden had 160 federal agents, or their deputies that were cross-designated with all the powers of Immigration agents. They started launching large-scale crackdowns in Hispanic neighborhoods with zero evidence of actual criminal activity, sending out the SWAT team, the K9 teams, you know, hundreds of members of their volunteer posse, to just target day laborers. So—and that’s something that’s continued ever since they got the federal agreement.

AMY GOODMAN: And what about this issue of whether Janet Napolitano, the Arizona governor, can deal with Sheriff Arpaio in the way that the Congress members and community groups are demanding, given her history?

I’m looking at a piece, in addition to your pieces, Ryan Gabrielson, by Tom Zoellner, who formerly wrote for the Arizona Republic. And he—the piece is called “Maricopa County includes Phoenix)]. That inmates have a way of getting killed in Sheriff Joe’s jails, costing Maricopa County millions of dollars in lawsuits, has not dimmed his star. Nor has a federal judge’s order that he provide a constitutionally mandated minimum level of food and health care, an order that said Arpaio had inflicted ‘needless suffering and deterioration’ on the mentally ill.”

He goes on to say, “More than a decade ago, Napolitano was in a position to help curb Arpaio’s excesses. As a U.S. attorney in 1995, she was put in charge of [a] Justice Department investigation into atrocious conditions in Arpaio’s ‘tent city.’ Napolitano carried out her task with what can best be described as reluctance, going out of her way to protect Arpaio from flak almost before the probe had started.” She told the Associated Press, "We’re doing this with the complete cooperation of the sheriff.” She said, “We run a strict jail but a safe jail, and I haven’t heard from anyone who thinks that this is a bad thing.”

He writes, “‘Anyone’? Maybe Napolitano needed to get out of her office a little more.

“The Justice Department’s final report, issued about two years later, confirmed a list of disgraces, including excessive use of force, gratuitous use of pepper spray and ‘restraint chairs’ (since blamed for at least three inmate deaths), and hog-tying and beating of inmates. It also said Arpaio’s staffing was ‘below levels needed for safety and humane operations.’”

Ryan Gabrielson, this is a good chance to go into the history of the sheriff, something that you’ve done comprehensively in this five-part series. We’re going to break and come back. We’re speaking with Ryan Gabrielson, a reporter with the East Valley Tribune who has won the 2008 George Polk Award, just announced yesterday, and Salvador Reza, who is a member of the Puente movement in Phoenix, Arizona, where President Obama is today. Stay with us.

[break]