Copwatch and Anarchists help bring down Sheriff Joe; Homeland Security finally ends 287g with MCSO

My earlier post was critical that the US Department of Justice hasn't gone far enough to prosecute Joe Arpaio, but my Spacebook community reminds me that a lot of people helped move the feds to act as they did today, and that was no small piece of ground we just took. It led to the decision by Homeland Security to finally cancel the 287g agreement they have with the Maricopa County Sheriff's Office (MCSO), as noted below by Janet Napolitano. 

Without the work as well as the sacrifice of a lot of people - folks who don't put on body armor and guns, but have taken great personal risk nonetheless to document and fight our dear sheriff's crimes - today's DOJ ultimatum to Maricopa County never would have come. So, while I wish we were getting more from the feds (and sooner), I'm grateful to all those in this community that helped get us this far. 

Much of the evidence the DOJ and ACLU have against the MCSO - particularly in regards to their practice of racial profiling - was provided by people like Dennis Gilman and a fleet of observers with camcorders (organized by everyone from the unions to PUENTE) trained by Phoenix Copwatch (full of anarchists).  Props to the undocumented targets of racism, the UUs and black bloc(kers) alike who turned out for the protests when they were both big and small, to keep Arpaio's criminality and his incompetence in the public eye. Finally, thanks to all those journalists, (left and center) and bloggers who have helped amplify the voice of resistance out here, too, rather than just echo what comes out of the MCSO's propaganda machine.

So, relish this day and what comes of it; let's just not forget that the bigger picture without this one man - the capitalist, white supremacist patriarchy and prison industrial complex that have devastated so many lives and communities - will continue to exist long after he's history. Remember, too, that our dear DOJ is still part of that tyranny as well.

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Statement by Secretary Napolitano on DOJ’s Findings of Discriminatory Policing in Maricopa County

Release Date: December 15, 2011
For Immediate Release
Office of the Press Secretary
Contact: 202-282-8010

“The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is troubled by the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) findings of discriminatory policing practices within the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office (MCSO).   Discrimination undermines law enforcement and erodes the public trust.  DHS will not be a party to such practices. Accordingly, and effective immediately, DHS is terminating MCSO’s 287(g) jail model agreement and is restricting the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office access to the Secure Communities program.  DHS will utilize federal resources for the purpose of identifying and detaining those individuals who meet U.S. Immigration Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) immigration enforcement priorities.  The Department will continue to enforce federal immigration laws in Maricopa County in smart, effective ways that focus our resources on criminal aliens, recent border crossers, repeat and egregious immigration law violators and employers who knowingly hire illegal labor.”

DHS' "Secure Communities" program damages communities

Got the lead on this one from Bender's Immigration Bulletin, which is packed full of info updated daily about immigration laws and practices. The actual article below comes from Immigration Impact. Note that some members of the task force felt the recommendations didn't go far enough to address the problems with the Secure Communities program.

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Task Force Submits Recommendations on DHS’s Flawed Secure Communities Program

Immigrationimpact.com
September 16, 2011

Anyone following the saga surrounding Secure Communities—DHS’s flawed enforcement program that runs fingerprints through federal databases—can tell you that the program has been ripe with controversy since its inception in 2008. As DHS began to stray from the program’s original focus on criminal aliens—state and city leaders, police chiefs, immigration advocates, and congressional members blasted the agency for casting too broad a net and for its dubious implementation process. After tensions reached a boiling point in June, ICE Director John Morton created a 20-member task force to address growing concerns. This week, that task force submitted its final recommendations in a report to the Homeland Security Advisory Council (HSAC)—recommendations that some former task force members say don’t go far enough.

In the report released today, the task force—which initially consisted of 20 members representing immigration advocates, law enforcement leaders and union members—found that “fingerprint identification through the program should no longer lead federal agents to deport immigrants arrested by local police officers for minor traffic violations.”

The report also criticized immigration offices for making inconsistent statements about whether participation in the program was voluntary and found that Secure Communities has an “unintended negative impact” on public safety.

To the extent that Secure Communities may damage community policing, the result can be greater levels of crime. If residents do not trust their local police, they are less willing to step forward as witnesses to or victims of crime. As a result, some Task Force members believe that decisions by local jurisdictions regarding participation in Secure Communities should be honored.

Task Force chairman and executive director of the Police Executive Research Forum, Chuck Wexler, said that DHS loses credibility in the community when it snags low-level offenders and that the program “should focus on deporting serious and violent felons”—a sentiment shared widely by the task force. The task force was apparently divided, however, on whether the program should be suspended while the problems were solved.

Benjamin Johnson, executive director of the American Immigration Council, said the group was initially told to focus on how the program deals with traffic offenders, but realized there were much larger questions to consider if they were going to make meaningful recommendations:

This program is seriously flawed as it exists today. DHS needs to take bold action to either refocus the program on strictly pursuing violent criminals or change the program completely. Either way, DHS can no longer afford to jeopardize the relationship between communities and the law enforcement officers there to protect them.

Some task force members, however—who resigned from the group and did not endorse the final report—believe that Secure Communities is far too flawed to get better. Arturo Venegas, a former California police chief who resigned from the task force this week, said the report didn’t go far enough.

Even if DHS/ICE put the recommendations in place, the problems would continue. Without concrete accountability measures and without concrete directives, the fact of the matter is people will still get into the system that shouldn’t be there. I even question the legitimacy of the program.

Only time will tell how and when DHS takes these recommendations into consideration. The report was submitted to the Homeland Security Advisory Council (HSAC) which will review the recommendations before submitting them to ICE Director John Morton.

ICE Key ACCESS Programs

Here's a link to a good article on the 287g program, Secure Communities, etc. It's from the folks at the National Immigration Law Center. From their website:

Our mission is to protect and promote the rights and opportunities of low-income immigrants and their family members.  NILC staff specialize in immigration law and the employment and public benefits rights of immigrants.  We conduct policy analysis and impact litigation and provide publications, technical advice, and trainings to a broad constituency of legal aid agencies, community groups, and pro bono attorneys.

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Overview of  ICE  Programs:

One of the most troubling aspects of recent immigration enforcement is the degree to which state and local police have become enmeshed in the enforcement of federal immigration law. Their role is largely unregulated and
unchallenged. It has occurred through interrelated programs that lack transparency, accountability, oversight,
and mechanisms to ensure that the federal government’s claimed enforcement priorities — to target “serious
criminal aliens”— are carried out in reality...(more: pdf)

Profit motives and immigrant detention

This came from my professor for my Immigration and Justice class today. This is what the anti-immigrant rhetoric comes back to as well - simple profit motives. Our bodies really are little more than merchandise to be traded, bought and sold.

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Focus on “Criminal Aliens” Increases Demand for Private Immigrant Detention Business – According to New Profit Reports
5 November 2009

From the Business of Detention http://www.businessofdetention.com/

In earnings reports released this week the nation’s two largest private prison operators cited “significant growth opportunities” for detaining immigrants, driven largely by the Obama administration’s emphasis on detaining “criminal aliens.”

The GEO Group – an international private prison operator that draws about 75 percent of its revenue from controlling a quarter of the U.S. private prison industry – said it believes that “this federal initiative to target, detain, and deport “criminal aliens” throughout the country will continue to drive the need for immigration detention beds over the next several years.”

A Third Quarter earnings report released on Monday shows The GEO Group is adding another 1,100 beds to its Aurora, Colorado, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Processing Center for a total of 1,532 beds. As part of its renewed contract with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement for the continued management of our Northwest Detention Center, capacity there will be increased from 1,030 to 1,575 beds.

Today Corrections Corporation of America – which manages more than 50 percent of all prison beds under private contract in the United States – said in its Third Quarter earnings report that revenue from its federal customers increased 4.9 percent, “primarily driven by the commencement of our new management contract with the Federal Bureau of Prisons at our newly constructed Adams County Correctional Center.” This facility in Natchez, Mississippi houses 2,567 “criminal alien offenders – low-security illegal immigrants  who committed offenses in the United States and will be returned to their country of origin upon completion of their sentence.”(why are we paying good money to hold on to "low security" prisoners who we're just going to ship out after we're done punishing anyway? How petty is that?)

The company’s newly appointed CEO, Damon Hininger, told investors during a conference call that the company continues to focus on filling vacant capacity. He said he was pleased with an increase of 1,300 detainees in CCA’s U.S. Marshall’s facilities since January 2009. The company recently completed renovations of its 502-bed North Georgia Detention Center. It began receiving detainees from ICE in October and currently houses about 100 detainees there.

Hininger said CCA has its eye on an ICE contract to build and operate a 2,200-bed detention center in Los Angeles, and expects a procurement as early as December, though the company is not listed among the interested vendors on a government website listing the request for proposals for the contract.

Funding for expanded immigrant detention is provided in the FY2010 budget for the Department of Homeland Security, of which ICE is a member agency. President Obama signed the budget into law on October 29. It includes $5.4 for ICE, about half a billion more than in FY2009. From this amount, $2.5 million is allocated for detention and removal operations, including $1.5 million for the identification and removal of “criminal aliens” who are at large or already incarcerated. At least $200 million is provided for the Secure Communities program, which began in 2008 to screen for undocumented immigrants by taking the fingerprints of anyone booked into a local jail and checking for a match in ICE’s database.

Critics like Joan Friedland, Immigration Policy Director for the National Immigration Law Center, have noted that as of March 22, 2009, “19,495 individuals were identified as undocumented through the Secure Communities program. Of these, only 1,436 were identified as ‘Level 1 criminals.’ The rest were arrested for lesser crimes, which include minor traffic offenses like driving without a license.”