Immigrant-rights activists criticize deportations of noncriminals

Texas is now the first border state to implement the Department of Homeland Security's Secure Communities program, the mandatory system that uses fingerprints to scour local jails for illegal immigrants and then deport them.

The point of the program is to remove serious offenders--rapists, murderers and kidnappers--from the country, the Wall Street Journal reports. But in practice, non-offenders are often caught and deported as well, contributing to the record total number of deportations this year.

About a quarter of those deported under the program since 2008 had no criminal records, the Journal reports. But that proportion varies by location. In Arizona's Maricopa County for example, more than half of those deported under the program were non-offenders.

The executive director of the nonprofit American Immigration Lawyers Association, Crystal Williams, told The Upshot that the program is contributing to overcrowding in the immigration court system.

"One of the problems with the program is it's dumping people into the system who probably should not be there," Williams said. "People who have been picked up for [driving with] a broken headlight get pushed into the system and get picked up. The immigration courts are getting filled with people like that."

Williams says the program effectively encourages law enforcement to employ flimsy charges to pick up people they suspect of being in the country illegally, since the fingerprinting system may catch them for being illegal immigrants even once the charges are dropped. This leads to racial profiling, she says.

Overstaying a visa--the way that about 40 percent of the country's 11 million illegal immigrants remain in the country, based on a 2006 estimate--is a civil violation, not a criminal offense. Entering the country illegally is a misdemeanor.

"We as a group don't see this as a particularly productive or intelligent way to go about immigration enforcement," Williams said. "It's getting in the way of law enforcement; it's setting up a bit of distrust among the communities. The fact is, it's being used as kind of impromptu SB 1070" -- Arizona's tough, controversial immigration law.

Officials in at least five of the nation's counties--including the District of Columbia--have tried to opt out of the program, fearing that it would hamper cooperation between the immigrant community and the police, according to the Washington Post. They have been unsuccessful.

Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano and advocates for stricter enforcement of immigration laws tout the 70 percent increase in deportations of criminal suspects as an accomplishment that will make America safer. Conservative critics charge that the Obama administration is focusing on deporting only illegal immigrants who have committed crimes, while also backing comprehensive immigration reform that includes a path to citizenship for those willing to pay back taxes and a fine.

The attention to the program isn't likely to win accolades for the Obama administration in the largely pro-reform Latino community. A recent Pew Hispanic Center poll found that only 51 percent of registered Latino voters plan to vote this midterm election, compared with 70 percent of overall voters. Only 26 percent of respondents--who are mostly Democrats--said Obama's policies are "helpful to Latinos."

The leader of a get-out-the-vote effort targeted at Latinos had harsh words for the program: "Not only are they not helping to solve the issue, but they are criminalizing more immigrants," Mi Familia Vota Director Ben Monterroso told the Journal.

(Photo of students rallying for immigration reform: AP)