ImmPolitic

Welcome to ImmPolitic, the National Immigration Forum’s blog. Here we will comment on current developments in immigration policy and politics from the perspective of a Washington-based, national pro-immigrant organization.

Targeted Enforcement To Make Us Safer…

March 31, 2009 - Posted by Katherine Vargas

 

Photo by Gianni D.

Two recent stories indicate that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is rethinking how it conducts home and workplace immigration raids.  The anti-immigration groups and their Congressional allies see this as a sign that the Obama Administration is going “soft” on illegal immigration, where as supporters of immigration reform see it as a good sign that scarce enforcement resources will be directed at actual threats.

 

On Sunday, Spencer Hsu of the Washington Post reported:

 

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano has delayed a series of proposed immigration raids and other enforcement actions at U.S. workplaces in recent weeks, asking agents in her department to apply more scrutiny to the selection and investigation of targets as well as the timing of raids, federal officials said.

 

A senior department official said the delays signal a pending change in whom agents at U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement choose to prosecute—increasing the focus on businesses and executives instead of ordinary workers… Another DHS official said Napolitano plans to release protocols this week to ensure more consistent work-site investigations and less “haphazard” decision-making.

 

The Los Angeles Times ran with a similar story on Tuesday:

 

The policy is in line with comments that President Obama made during last year’s campaign, when he said enforcement efforts had failed because they focused on illegal immigrants rather than on the companies that hired them.

 

“There is a supply side and a demand side,” one Homeland Security official said. “Like other law enforcement philosophies, there is a belief that by focusing more on the demand side, you cut off the supply.”

 

There is ample evidence that DHS under the Bush Administration was telling Congress one thing and doing another.  What they said they were doing was protecting homeland security by targeting serious violent criminals, known gang-members, child pornographers, child predators and the like using macho-sounding “Fugitive Operations Teams.”

 

In reality, they were going after whoever was easiest to catch, whoever happened to be around, and were even filling arrest quotas by doing drive-by sweeps of local 7-11s and other places immigrants congregate. 

 

As the Washington Post and others reported in February, “Fugitive Operations Teams” is a bit of a misnomer.  After a night of striking out, the Post reports, ICE officers were commended to cruise the local convenience stores (Conflicting Accounts of an ICE Raid in Md. (By N.C. Aizenman, February 18, 2009; Page A01):

 

The boss was not happy. His elite team of immigration officers had been raiding targets across Prince George’s and Montgomery counties all night long in search of fugitive and criminal immigrants but had netted only a handful.

 

As the unit regrouped in its Baltimore office that frigid January morning two years ago, the supervisor warned members that they were well behind a Washington-mandated annual quota of 1,000 arrests per team and ordered them back out to boost their tally.

 

“I don’t care where you get more arrests, we need more numbers,” he said, according to one account in a summary of an internal investigation. The boss then added that the agents could go to any street corner and find a group of illegal immigrants, according to the summary, not previously made public.

 

This is consistent with reports on the mistargeting of enforcement resources uncovered by the Migration Policy Institute.  Their report, released in February, Collateral Damage: An Examination of ICE’s Fugitive Operations Program, found that:

 

…73 percent of the nearly 97,000 people arrested by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) fugitive operations teams between the program’s inception in 2003 and early 2008 were unauthorized immigrants without criminal records.

 

Despite the National Fugitive Operations Program’s mandate to apprehend dangerous fugitives, arrests of fugitive aliens with criminal convictions have represented a steadily declining share of total arrests by the teams, accounting for just 9 percent of total arrests in 2007, down from 32 percent in 2003, according to the Department of Homeland Security’s own estimates. (MPI Press Release, February 4, 2009)

 

According to the Immigration Justice Clinic at Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law at Yeshiva University,

 

ICE has created tremendous bureaucratic incentives for fugitive operation teams to abandon focus on high-priority targets in favor of a shotgun approach of undisciplined home raids. ICE’s home raids have primarily led to the arrests of individuals who posed no risk to society and have come at a significant cost to immigrant families and to ICE’s own enforcement priorities

 

That bears repeating:

“individuals who posed no risk to society and have come at a significant cost to immigrant families and to ICE’s own enforcement priorities “

 

Then there is the much-heralded 287(g) program to enlist local police in enforcing federal civil immigration law – one of the favorites of the deportation-only movement.  According to numerous sources, this program suffers from similar mission creep. 

 

GAO, the investigative arm of Congress, discovered that the 287(g) program lacks oversight, is not targeting the serious violent offenders and fugitives it was supposed to target, and is probably violating people’s civil rights.  As Angela Kelley, Director of the Immigration Policy Center, said at the time of the GAO report’s release:

 

The report echoes the conclusions reached by others who have studied local law enforcement of immigration laws.  The costs of these policies are enormous to communities’ safety, civil rights, and pocketbooks. As Secretary Napolitano and her staff begin their review of immigration enforcement tactics, we urge them to consider the totality of evidence coming from the community and acknowledge the full scope of the problems presented by 287(g).  We are confident that this administration will find a new way forward and advance policies that restore the rule of law and respect civil rights.

 

Reports from Justice Strategies and the ACLU of North Carolina, in conjunction with the University of North Carolina School of Law, echo the concerns that oversight, accountability, and the program’s basic mission were loosely defined and even more loosely implemented, to say the least.

 

So the opponents of immigration and of immigration reform bemoan the idea of targeting enforcement at real threats.  They would prefer that resources are used as they are now: breaking down doors in the middle of the night to remove parents from families and indiscriminately rounding up suspected immigrants here without papers.  And some television commentators have the temerity to call the “pro-enforcement.”

 

We, who are often labeled “anti-enforcement,” see targeted enforcement as an encouraging sign that this President and this Administration are more concerned with actual security than in headlines and scaring immigrants willy-nilly.

 

Our communities deserve targeted enforcement to make us safer, regardless of the political spin the opponents of immigration reform hope to put on it.

 

DREAM Act is Reintroduced in the House and the Senate

March 26, 2009 - Posted by Katherine Vargas

Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL) has joined forces with Senator Dick Lugar (R-IN), Congressman Howard Berman (D-CA) and Congressman Lincoln Díaz-Balart (R-FL) and several other Republican and Democratic Representatives to reintroduce the Development, Relief and Education for Aliens Minors Act or DREAM Act.  The DREAM Act is an important component of comprehensive immigration reform that would provide a path to citizenship to immigrant students who have been raised in the U.S., graduated from a U.S. high school, have stayed out of trouble and attend college or serve in the military.

 

Ruben Rumbaut, a sociology professor at the University of California at Irvine who has been studying immigrant children since the 1960s accurately called these students the “1.5 generation”; highly bilingual and high achievers, working to “make good” in the eyes of parents who made substantial sacrifices on their behalf. They have been beating the odds all of their young lives.

 

These hard-working individuals were brought to the U.S. when they were just children and call America home, are deprived of achieving their full potential because they are punished for a decision they had no control over. Ignoring their situation and ignoring the inadequacies of our outdated immigration system will not resolve our immigration problems.

 

As our country seeks ways to rehabilitate our economy, we should keep in mind the many young and talented individuals who are already living in the U.S. and who could be part of the skilled and educated workforce of the future that will help us compete in the global economy.

 

Today’s introduction of the DREAM Act is additional proof that Congress is getting ready to work on immigration reform. We applaud these courageous Members of Congress who have set partisan wedge politics aside and are ready to engage meaningfully to find a practical and fair solution to our immigration troubles.

 

You can read our press statement here and show support for the DREAM Act here and here

 

NAACP urges President Obama to grant TPS for Haitians

March 24, 2009 - Posted by Katherine Vargas

Photo by Danny.Hammontree

 

The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) has joined the effort to persuade President Obama to grant Temporary Protected Status (TPS) — temporary protection from deportation for nationals of a country in which environmental or political events have occurred which make it temporarily unsafe to deport them — to Haitians while Haiti recovers from multiple disasters. The petition, available online on the NAACP website, states:

 

Recent devastating environmental disasters from which Haiti has not recovered, continuing violence, and unstable political conditions pose a serious threat at this time to the personal safety of anyone forcibly repatriated to Haiti.  Last year’s storms and hurricanes killed hundreds and rendered hundreds of thousands homeless.  Fifteen percent of Haiti’s already fragile economy was destroyed, the equivalent of eight to ten Hurricane Katrinas hitting the United States in the same month. Haitian deportees face hunger, homelessness, and grave threats to their security.  

 

Furthermore, granting TPS to Haitian refugees would help Haiti recover, as Haitians in the United States could obtain work permits and would increase the already significant flow of remittances to their family and friends back home. Haitians who receive that aid are more likely to stay and rebuild Haiti. Many depend on those remittances for their very survival. That flow of dollars is among the best foreign aid that the United States can provide, and it costs taxpayers nothing.  Strengthening Haiti’s economy will be the only sure way to ensure that more Haitians will not risk their lives on a perilous oversea journey to the United States.  Granting Haitians TPS would also directly assist Haiti’s nascent democracy in its efforts to recover from these conditions, stabilize the country’s economy, rebuild its political and economic institutions, and provide a future of hope for Haiti’s people.  TPS would be extended only to those Haitians currently residing in the United States, so any concerns about a mass exodus to the US are unfounded.

NAACP Urges President Obama To Grant Temporary Safe Haven To Haitian Refugees Already In The U.S.

 

The Obama Administration has granted an extension of Deferred Enforced Departure (DED) for Liberians. DED provides Liberians the temporary right to live and work in the United States and it was first granted in 1991 as a result of the widespread civil war in Liberia.

 

Chief of Police: Taking Back Immigration Policy from Smugglers

March 23, 2009 - Posted by Katherine Vargas

Photo by CJ Sorg

 

Conservative syndicated columnist George F. Will provides insight on the current conditions at the border from a local law enforcement perspective. His syndicated column —published in the Houston Chronicle, the Washington Post, Arizona Daily Star among others — featured Phoenix Police Chief Jack Harris, firmly emphasizing that any long-term solution to security and anti-smuggling efforts must include reforming immigration, as it will help weaken smugglers benefiting from the chaotic immigration situation,

 

…Harris says, “The answer is not in Phoenix. The answer is in Washington.” We know how to close a border, says Harris with acid dryness — “ build a wall” and deploy “machine gun nests.” But, “I personally think that is stupid.” For now, however, the United States “has turned immigration policy over to Mexican thugs.”

 

But “don’t give me 50 more” officers to “deal with the symptoms.” Rather, says Harris, who was raised in a rough Phoenix neighborhood, give me comprehensive immigration reform that controls the borders, provides for whatever seasonal immigration the nation wants, and one way or another settles the status of the 12 million who are here illegally — 55 percent of whom have been here at least eight years.

 

The piece delves into the complexity of the situation in Phoenix, often simplified by newspaper headlines,

 

[Chief Harris] is weary of explaining that this is one of America’s safest large cities, with declining rates of violent crime and property crime, even though it has one of the nation’s highest rates of home foreclosures. Unfortunately, there are the kidnappings

 

….There were 368 reported kidnappings for ransom here last… It is difficult to know how many kidnappings occurred there or here: Many are not reported because it can be dangerous to do so. And because they are settled before there is time to report them

 

…  But some of the people become pawns in horrific transactions. A person in the United States might pay, say, $2,500 to have someone smuggled into the country, and then might receive a phone call: Pay another $5,000 and we will stop raping or torturing — do you hear the screams? — the person you want.

 

The conservative writer goes on to explain that the kidnapping problem is not caused by a high criminality rate in the city but by the lucrative business of human smuggling,

 

In any case, law-abiding citizens here are rarely at risk. Most of the kidnappings are drug smugglers and human traffickers preying on one another.

 

Phoenix’s familiar sorts of crimes have not much to do with most of the city’s immigrants, legal or illegal. They commit a smaller percentage of the crimes (10 percent) than they are of the city’s population (24 percent). But the lurid crimes that are giving this city an unmerited reputation as dangerous represent the seepage of the Mexican cartels into his city.

 

— Immigration reform key to troubles along the border, March 21, 2009

 

We cannot allow coyotes and smugglers to further exploit our dysfunctional immigration system to finance their illicit transactions. We need a system that regulates immigration efficiently and responds to the labor and economic needs of our country; a system where immigrants are allowed to come vetted and with a visa rather than uninspected and with a smuggler. 

CIS report shows why we need Immigration Reform (unintentionally, of course)

March 23, 2009 - Posted by Katherine Vargas

After issuing numerous less-than-credible research reports that blame immigrants for global warming and the financial crisis, the Center for Immigration Studies —the anti-immigration advocacy organization founded as the research arm of FAIR,— issued a report focusing on the impact that the 2006 worksite raids on Swift & Co. meatpacking plants had on the labor conditions of the plant’s workers. Strangely enough, the findings of the report highlight the benefits of a legalized workforce: better wages and better working conditions for workers, the same argument used by pro-immigrant organizations as they advocate for legalization for 12 million or so undocumented immigrants. The Washington Independent reports on the irony,

 

Although CIS advocates the crackdown on illegal aliens through raids such as these, the report actually makes a persuasive case for the legalization of many currently undocumented immigrants –- what many anti-illegal immigration groups and their supporters call “amnesty.”

 

Among the findings of the report are that meatpacking workers work in difficult and dangerous conditions; workers have seen a 45 percent decline in their wages and standard of living since 1980; the meatpacking plants returned to full capacity within five months of the raid; and at the four facilities about which researchers were able to obtain information, wages and bonuses rose on average eight percent after the raid.

 

While CIS claims this supports the efficacy of workplace raids, Walter Ewing, senior researcher at the Immigration Policy Center, notes that the same data could just as easily be used to support a program for legalization of undocumented workers. It would also suggest the need for raising wages at the meatpacking plants – something that United Food and Commercial Workers was already trying to do before the plants were raided.

—    Conservative Anti-Illegal Immigration Group Makes Strong Case for Legalization, March 19, 2009

 

The CIS report argues that the rise in wages was a direct result of the workplace raids but they forgot one minor detail: the union was already working on the wage increases before the raid. Here’s what UFCW — the union representing Swift’s workers — had to say about this report, as published on Immigration Impact, the blog of the Immigration policy Center,

 

A new report by the Center for Immigration Studies is a perfect illustration of the misinterpretation and manipulation of data to reach a totally biased and flawed conclusion-and clearly demonstrates a complete lack of understanding about the history of the meatpacking industry.

 

[T]he UFCW has been fighting to rebuild wages and standards for these [meatpacking plant] jobs…At Swift, the UFCW had negotiated those wage increases before the raid even took place. So there goes CIS’s central argument, collapsed like a flimsy house of cards.

 

CIS also fails to address the devastating impact that the Swift raid had on thousands of workers -immigrant and native born. After the raids, the UFCW documented numerous examples of racial profiling, U.S. citizens harassed and detained by armed agents and a total disregard for workers’ constitutional rights.

—New CIS Study: Easy Answers and Half-Baked Solutions, March 19, 2009

Instead of falling for FAIR/CIS’s deportation-only strategy, pitting workers against each other, we should be looking for solutions that move the country forward, together. As long as there is an underground economy that benefits from exploitable workers, the rights of all workers will be destabilized. Legalizing immigrant workers will even the playing field, strengthen the bargaining power of hard-working employees, and will improve labor conditions and wages for all workers, native and immigrant workers alike. This is yet another reason why we need immigration reform now.

Pelosi Stands Committed to Immigration Reform

March 20, 2009 - Posted by Katherine Vargas

 

Photo by Steve Rhodes

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has become the target of conservative media attacks after her remarks during a CHC “Family Unity” tour prayer event in San Francisco where she spoke out against ICE’s immigration raids, stating that they are against America’s values as they take parents away from their children and instill fear in the immigrant community. Despite being bombarded by nasty comments by Rush Limbaugh and Bill O’Reilly, Speaker Pelosi remains firm on her stance in support of immigration reform and she is not afraid to repeat her statements, as seen during a conference on border issues by the U.S.- Mexico Chamber of Commerce, Congressional Quaterly reports,

 

A comprehensive immigration bill may or may not happen in 2009, but House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., says lawmakers shouldn’t wait to put the brakes on enforced deportation measures that many say have gotten out of control.

 

“ICE raids that break up families, just kicking in the door in the middle of the night, taking a parent away, that’s just not the American way,” Pelosi said Thursday, at a conference on border issues hosted by the U.S.-Mexico Chamber of Commerce.

 

…. Pelosi took some heat from conservative pundits for expressing such sentiments … But Thursday, Pelosi stuck firmly to her position, urging immediate action even in the absence of a comprehensive package.

 

“We need this comprehensive reform, and we need it soon,” Pelosi said. “And we need to stop those kinds of ICE raids in the meantime.”

— Pelosi Stands Firm on Immigration Overhaul, March 19, 2009

 

 

We applaud the Speaker’s courageous statements. She understands that aggressive workplace raids are inconsistent with our nation’s values of family unity and due process. Enforcement alone will not address the problems with our current immigration system, we need a comprehensive and realistic approach that secures our country but also remains true to our nation’s deepest values.

 

If you would like to thank Speaker Pelosi for her leadership and support for immigration reform visit: www.AmericasVoiceOnline.org/Courageous 

Momentum is building for Immigration Reform—as confirmed by President Obama

March 19, 2009 - Posted by Katherine Vargas

 

Photo by Iceman9294

The wheels are in motion for the Obama Administration and Congress to start fixing our broken immigration system. In the last few weeks, we have heard encouraging signs from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and White House Chief of Staff, Rahm Emanuel that immigration reform will be addressed in 2009. We are now hearing it again from President Obama himself (this time in English!) during a Town Hall meeting in Costa Mesa, CA. The full transcript is available on the Los Angeles Times blog,

“I [have] reiterated my belief that we have to have comprehensive immigration reform.

Now, I know this is an emotional issue, I know it’s a controversial issue, I know that the people get real riled up politically about this, but—but ultimately, here’s what I believe:  We are a nation of immigrants, number one. 

Number two, we do have to have control of our borders.  Number three that people who have been here for a long time and put down roots here have to have some mechanism over time to get out of the shadows, because if they stay in the shadows, in the underground economy, then they are oftentimes pitted against American workers. 

Since they can’t join a union, they can’t complain about minimum wages, et cetera, they end up being abused, and that depresses the wages of everybody, all Americans. 

After describing why the current status quo is unacceptable and detrimental to the rights of all workers, President Obama continued to emphasize the urgency for reform and the need to do it in a comprehensive way,

So I don’t think that we can do this [immigration reform] piecemeal.  I think what we have to do is to come together and say, we’re going to strengthen our borders…. 

So we’ve got to deal with that at the same time as we deal in a humane fashion with folks who are putting down roots here, have become our neighbors, have become our friends, they may have children who are U.S. citizens.  That’s the kind of comprehensive approach that we have to take. 

—Full text of President Obama’s Costa Mesa Town Hall meeting, March 18, 2009

The Town Hall statements were given just hours after President Obama met with the entire Congressional Hispanic Caucus (CHC) to only discuss immigration.  As reported by Congress Daily, the meeting focused on sharing an agenda and plan for moving immigration reform forward in 2009,

 

“The president made clear to us that he is a man of his word. He clearly understands the consequences of a broken immigration system,” said Hispanic Caucus Chairwoman Nydia Velazquez, D-N.Y. “President Obama has committed to working with us as we continue to lead on this issue, and serve as advocates for the immigrant community.”

 

… A congressional aide said Obama committed to work with the Hispanic Caucus and “start the process” of holding meetings and forums on immigration reform within the next few months.

 

…“The great thing is that the political space is there,” said Ali Noorani, executive director of the National Immigration Forum. He said there is “a moral, political and economic” reason for Congress to take up immigration reform this year.

 

 

Washington cannot duck this issue. The drumbeat for immigration reform is growing increasingly loud and leadership is taking the first steps toward developing a broad strategy that will solve a problem the American people want solved.

 

 

 

Leader Continues to Point to Progress on Immigration Reform

March 16, 2009 - Posted by Katherine Vargas

Photo by Center for American Progress Action 

 Senate Majority Leader, Harry Reid (D-NV) has once again reiterated his vow to push strongly for immigration reform this year, stating that immigration reform can be part of the solution to our economic woes. Univisión reports on his recent speech at the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce Legislative Conference,

  

Senator [Reid] highlighted the contributions of the Hispanic community to the U.S. and stated that immigration reform is part of President Barack Obama’s economic recovery plan.

 

“I have been firmly committed to immigration reform for a long time now, look no further than the angry messages and letters I receive to prove it”, said [Senator] Reid.

 

... [Senator] Reid confirmed that commitment still exists to continue working until passage of comprehensive immigration reform legislation that includes legalization for the estimated 12 million undocumented living in the country. “I remain hopeful. I am committed in offering this year comprehensive immigration reform that is strong, practical and fair”.

— Líder del Senado Habló de Reforma, March 12, 2009 (Translation by Katherine Vargas)

 

Immigration policy experts and advocates are echoing the chant of “yes we can” pass immigration reform, as we recently told online magazine AlterNet,

 

“The prospects for reform are very good if advocates continue to build power and make it happen,” he [Doug Rivlin of the National Immigration Forum] told me. “The Obama administration can read election results.”

 

The pieces that will move forward immigration reform are finally coming together. Leaders who are central to the effort to get laws and procedures fixed and legislation passed — including President Obama, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV), House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), and White House Chief of Staff, Rahm Emanuel— have acknowledged that addressing immigration reform is not just good policy, but also good politics.

 

 

H-2A: Shedding Some Light on Midnight Regulations

March 16, 2009 - Posted by Katherine Vargas

Photo by *L*u*z*a* lack of inspiration

Just hours after being sworn in as the nation’s first Latina Secretary of Labor, Hilda Solis announced that she would suspend the Bush administration midnight regulations of the H-2A program.  Advocates for farm workers have been warning that the regulatory changes would have weakened wage and worker protections for participants in the H2A agricultural temporary worker program, thereby threatening the rights and working conditions of all workers in U.S. agriculture. The New York Times reports,  

The new rules cut the wages that many of these workers will receive and reduced the amount that growers had to reimburse these workers for their travel. They also eased administrative burdens by letting employers simply attest that they had met various program requirements.

…

Erik Nicholson, a national vice president of the United Farm Workers, applauded Ms. Solis’s decision, calling the Bush rules “some of the worst setbacks for farm workers in decades.” He added, “They meant worse wages and worse housing conditions for these workers and worse discrimination against American workers.”

 

The last-minute changes were an attempt by the departing administration rushing to make its mark and slap a band-aid solution on the program to satisfy certain constituents.  The changes would have not only encouraged more abuse of workers, but it would also have made a flawed program even worse.  Labor Secretary Solis commented announcing the suspension of the new regulations,

 

In December, Ms. Solis, then a California representative, condemned the regulations.  “With many families already burdened by this bad economy,” she said, “our nation cannot afford these guest worker program changes. There is no question that the guest-worker program needs significant overhaul, but slashing wages and reducing basic rights for the most vulnerable workers in our country, especially hardworking Latino farm workers, is not the answer.”

— Labor Secretary Proposes Suspending Farm Rules, March 14, 2009

 

The time has come to examine midnight decisions in the light of day. We applaud the Labor Secretary’s swift actions to reverse these ill will H-2A rules and we encourage the Administration to do a thorough review of the past Administration’s immigration policies and programs that provide no real solutions but instead, aggravate the chaotic immigration situation.  An overhaul of our immigration system that puts in place immigration laws that are realistic and enforceable, legalizes an often-exploitable workforce, responds to our labor and economic needs, keeps families together, and upholds our values as a nation will be the only long-term solution to our immigration problems.

 

Sheriff Arpaio in the spotlight of the Department of Justice

March 11, 2009 - Posted by Katherine Vargas

By now, you should be pretty familiar with Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio, and not necessarily for his outstanding performance in the FOX reality show but for community complaints about his orchestrated publicity stunts; the latest one involved parading shackled pre-trial detainees through the streets of Phoenix and into a segregated facility called “Tent City”. Locally and nationally, immigration and civil rights groups have firmly condemned Sheriff Arpaio’s antics and the abuse of his 287(g) agreement —the program that empowers local authorities to enforce federal immigration law — resulting in civil rights violations, racial profiling and excessive use of force, not to mention costly lawsuits.

 

Just hours before the formal presentation of 38,000 petition signatures *calling for a federal investigation of Sheriff Arpaio’s immigration enforcement actions, the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice (DOJ) announced that it will initiate an investigation. The Arizona Republic further reports,

 

The U.S. Justice Department has launched a civil-rights investigation of the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office after months of mounting complaints that deputies are discriminating in their enforcement of federal immigration laws.

 

…Officials from the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division notified Sheriff Joe Arpaio on Tuesday that they had begun the investigation, which will focus on whether deputies are engaging in “patterns or practices of discriminatory police practices and unconstitutional searches and seizures.”

 

Finally Sheriff Joe is receiving the attention he deserves! This is the first step for restoring adequate federal oversight of immigration enforcement actions, the article also points to the groundbreaking nature of the investigation,

 

An expert said it is the department’s first civil-rights probe related to immigration enforcement.

 

The Justice Department frequently receives racial-profiling complaints against police departments, but investigations are rare, said David Harris, a University of Pittsburgh lawprofessor and racial-profiling expert.

“The fact that this has come to their attention and they have announced their intent to investigate is highly significant,” Harris said. “It says there is enough there to be investigated. It’s not an iffy case that (can be ignored).”

—Arpaio to be investigated over alleged violations, March 11, 2009

 

We welcome the DoJ investigation and hope that it will further push the Administration and Congress to address immigration reform. As long as our immigration system remains in its current dysfunctional state, local authorities (like Sheriff Arpaio) will continue to exploit the confusion for their own political and publicity goals. 

 

*You can view videos from today’s press event presenting the 38,000 petition signatures at: http://www.americasvoiceonline.org/blog/entry/two_videos_from_todays_arpaio_event/

Page 1 of 2 pages  1 2 >