Opting Out of Federal Immigration Checks May Be on the Horizon

This is part of a series on immigration that is running across 12 Patch sites.

More than half of the people deported from Santa Cruz County in the first six months of a new immigration enforcement program were not wanted for crimes, according to a report from the Santa Cruz County Immigration Action Group.

The noncriminal deportees—40 in total—were not in the United States legally when they came into contact with police and were booked into the county jail for minor crimes, such as unpaid traffic tickets or not having a driver’s license.

A year ago, these people likely would not have attracted the attention of the federal Immigrations and Customs Enforcement. That changed in August, when Secure Communities activated in Santa Cruz County.

Secure Communities, or S-Comm, is an automated program that uses biometrics—mainly fingerprints—taken at local law enforcement agencies and cross-matches the information with the FBI’s criminal history records and Department of Homeland Security immigration records.

Those booked who are found to be a noncitizens, either based upon their previous criminal history or because they have no documentation to prove they are U.S. residents, are subject to deportation.

Of 74 people flagged for deportation from Santa Cruz County in the first six months of the program, 10 were classified as “Level 1” or “serious” offenders. Those included people accused of drug dealing, assault and homicide.

However, the majority of those flagged for immigration violations from Santa Cruz County from S-Comm’s inception in August 2010 to Jan. 27 were considered “noncriminals” or minor offenders, according to the county’s Immigration Action Group.

And that is drawing criticism.

“We just want them to do what they say they’re going to do, get rid of the harder criminals,” says Paul Johnston, member of the Santa Cruz County Immigration Project in Watsonville and professor of sociology at UC Santa Cruz.

Doug Keegan, program director at the Immigration Project, explained, “There have been some people with very minor (offenses). They get stopped because of tinted windows.”

Keegan meets many of their families after the deportation has happened.

Scared, with their lives disrupted, the relatives left behind find their way to Keegan’s office, overlooking City Plaza from the second-story of the Lettunice Building.

He recalled one woman who went to him saying, “What can we do? My son was stopped for a traffic violation, and now they say he’s been taken away.”

A ‘Communications Tool’

ICE spokeswoman Virginia Kice said, “Secure Communities is simply a tool, a communications tool, to ensure that ICE is notified when individuals that could be of interest come into local custody.”

The Santa Cruz Sheriff’s Office runs the county jail system and, by law, must share its information with ICE. Sheriff’s Chief Deputy Jeff Marsh, who heads the jail, pointed out that sheriff’s personnel do not investigate people’s citizenship status, and “we still don’t nor did we before have any type of agreement with ICE,” he said.

However, Marsh explained, “We don’t have the ability to prohibit custody information from being sent to ICE.”

Those arrested in Santa Cruz County have always been subject to immigration checks, but it wasn’t until August and the introduction of S-Comm that the process was streamlined. Previously, inmate information was faxed to ICE and immigration holds could take several days to surface.

Marsh said some people who are cited for minor crimes—such as being drunk in public or a traffic violation—and would be released within hours are now being held, because their immigration information is available almost instantly.

“We’re getting notifications many times within an hour or two of somebody being booked into our jail,” Marsh said.

S-Comm is not a dragnet, officials said. Kice repeated that the program is “just a tool” and that it “isn’t making decisions.”

“The thing about Secure Communities that people should remember is that it’s a color-blind system: Finger-printing databases don’t lie, and they can’t tell what race you are," she said. "People biometrics are unique, and criminal aliens can no longer lie behind a long list of aliases.” 

Opting Out?

While the S-Comm program sounds like an efficient way to weed out immigrants who could be a threat to the community, several pro-immigration groups have fought to repeal the program.

Late last year, U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano took away the option of individual jurisdictions, such as Santa Cruz County, to opt out of S-Comm.

That spurred a group of immigration advocates who are trying to educate local law enforcement officers and elected officials about the real-life implications of the immigration-check program.

“Our goal was just to put a human face on this,” Keegan said.

In April, the county’s Board of Supervisors approved a resolution to support state Assembly Bill 1081, also known as the TRUST Act. The bill, sponsored by San Francisco's Tom Ammiano, would give local governments the right to opt-out of ICE’s controversial Secure Communities program. It was approved by the state Assembly's Public Safety Committee last week and moves to the Assembly floor, KQED News reported.

The bill is an exciting development for pro-immigration advocates.

“It’s even better than what we expected, because it’s going to take the issue statewide so not only Santa Cruz County but other counties can have the option of withdrawing from the S-Comm program,” Keegan said. “It’s a real positive thing for us.”

But he went on to say that even if the bill is approved by the Legislature, county leaders would have to decide to excuse themselves from Secure Communities.

“I think we’ll still be looking at advocating with local—like with the sheriff, for instance—and other local leaders that that would be the more human and more beneficial move for our county,” Keegan said.

“It won’t benefit the people who have already been deported or who are already in custody, but for future purposes, it will be a relief for people that they won't have to feel the insecurity or the anxiety [that] if they get stopped for a minor traffic violation they could get whisked away.”

Whitney Nieto and Nina Tabio contributed to this report.

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