Global IssuesU.S.: Immigration Enforcement Prone to Abuses
A little-known programme run by the Department of Homeland Security is using inaccurate databases and functioning 'as little more than a dragnet to funnel even more people into the already overburdened' detention and deportation system of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency.
This is the assertion being made by three civil rights organisations that have filed a request under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) for information pertaining to a programme known as 'Secure Communities'.
The programme, which ICE claims targets 'dangerous criminal aliens', further involves local and state law enforcement agencies in federal immigration enforcement. The three groups say that since the inception of the programme, there has been a marked increase in racial profiling, excessive costs to state and local government and due process violations.
The groups are the National Day Labourer Organising Network (NDLON), the Centre for Constitutional Rights (CCR) and the Immigration Justice Clinic of the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law.
Sunita Patel, a CCR staff attorney, told IPS, 'Our principal concern is that this is a very secretive programme about which there is little public information.'
'It is being implemented in communities, but the lack of transparency makes it impossible for community groups to determine whether abuses are being committed. We hope our FOIA suit will shed some light on the issue,' she said.
'This programme is designed to fail because it relies on information from infamously inaccurate databases. We've already seen an increase in racial profiling, pre-textual arrests and mistaken identity of U.S. citizens,' she said, adding, 'Combined with the lack of regulation and publicly available information on Secure Communities, ICE will be essentially immune to accountability or transparency. With a budget reaching the billions, taxpayers should be very concerned.'
The Secure Communities programme has been implemented in at least 95 jurisdictions, with plans to expand nationwide by 2013. The opposition groups say it includes a biometrics component that requires an individual's fingerprints to be run through multiple databases upon arrest for any reason, even if no charges are brought.
Advocates and attorneys say that in addition to concerns presented by relying on potentially inaccurate and erroneous information in those databases, the programme functions as little more than a dragnet to funnel even more people into the already overburdened ICE detention and removal system.
The FOIA request covers materials necessary to provide the public with comprehensive information on the Secure Communities Programme, including policies, procedures and objectives; fiscal impact; data and statistical information; individual records; communications; and assessment records.
ICE is part of the Department of Homeland Security.
In a related development, the New York Times has revealed that immigration authorities allegedly colluded with Signal International, L.L.C., a Mississippi oilrig company, to punish and deport legal immigrant workers who chose to exercise their labour rights.
On Thursday, the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law and the New Orleans Workers' Centre for Racial Justice presented evidence obtained as part of a lawsuit against the agency.
It revealed that DHS Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), 'advised and instructed the company on how to undermine labour laws, skirt DHS regulations related to proper termination of worker visas, 'privately' deport legal workers and craft a communications and public relations strategy for Signal as media outlets began to report on the situation.'
The organisations said the exposure of misconduct by ICE agents towards the workers in this case is 'yet another chapter in a larger saga of questionable behaviour by ICE employees.'
The newspaper reported that immigration authorities worked closely with a marine oilrig company in Mississippi to discourage protests by temporary guest workers from India over their job conditions, including advising managers to send some workers back to India, according to new testimony in a federal lawsuit against the company, Signal International.
It said cooperation between the company and federal immigration agents was recounted in sworn depositions by Signal managers who were involved when tensions in its shipyard in Pascagoula, Mississippi erupted into a public clash in March 2007.
'Since then, hundreds of the Indian workers have brought a civil rights lawsuit against the company, claiming they were victims of human trafficking and labour abuse. Signal International is fighting the suit and has sued American and Indian recruiters who contracted with the workers in India. The company claims the recruiters misled it - and the workers - about the terms of the work visas that brought them to this country,' The Times reported.
Another New York Times story recently revealed documented efforts by ICE officials to cover up deaths in detention within the secretive detention system.
'The broken immigration system continues to reward, rather than discourage unethical behaviour by bad actor employers,' said Ali Noorani, executive director of the National Immigration Forum.
'This story underscores the urgent need for comprehensive immigration reform. The federal government should be the first to defend existing labor and immigration laws as well as the civil rights of all workers in America, not the first to destroy them,' he said.
'Comprehensive immigration reform is a component of building real economic security, contributing to a shared prosperity agenda that maintains and improves wages and working conditions in the United States and in other countries. We must protect all workers' rights, regardless of whether they were born in the United States or abroad,' he said.
Saket Soni, director of the New Orleans Workers' Centre for Racial Justice, which represents some workers in the lawsuit, said the managers' testimony showed that immigration enforcement agents had 'advised the corporation on how to retaliate against workers who were organising,' The Times reported.
© Inter Press Service (2010) — All Rights ReservedOriginal source: Inter Press Service