287(g) PRESS RELEASE

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
July 18, 2009

Media Contacts: Lorena Colin: (941) 539-1209 lorecolin@gmail.com

The Mexican-American Coalition for Immigration Reform (MXCIR) STRONGLY OPPOSES the plan to expand the controversial Bush Administration 287(g) program to eleven new jurisdictions around the country, which has been proposed by Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Janet Napolitano.

This program relinquishes, with no meaningful oversight, immigration enforcement power to local law enforcement and corrections agencies. Section 287(g) of the Immigration and Nationality Act authorizes local officers to investigate, detain and arrest undocumented immigrants on civil and criminal grounds; it also gives local officers the power and the tools to move detained individuals toward deportation.

287(g) has been associated with serious civil rights abuses and public safety concerns. As ACLU Immigrants’ Rights Project’s staff attorney Omar Jadwat said: “No amount of tinkering with the 287(g) program is likely to solve the fact that it threatens public safety and undermines the basic guarantee of equal treatment by increasing profiling of people who look or sound ‘foreign.”

These measures only leave communities even more vulnerable to abuses and fear. It will be harder to encourage undocumented individuals to contact the police to report crimes. In March, the United States Department of Justice launched an investigation into Sheriff Joe Arpaio of Maricopa County, Arizona, to determine whether Arpaio is using his 287(g) power to target Latinos and Spanish-speaking people. In Davidson County, Tennessee, the Sheriff’s Office has used its 287(g) power to apprehend undocumented immigrants driving to work, standing at day labor sites, or while fishing off piers. One pregnant woman---charged with driving without a license---was forced to give birth while shackled to her bed during labor. In Frederick County, MD individuals have been stopped for air fresheners hanging from rearview mirrors, “driving too slow” and for no reason at all just so they can be interrogated about their immigration status.

Preliminary data indicate that in some jurisdictions the majority of individuals arrested under 287(g) are accused of public nuisance or traffic offenses: driving without a seatbelt, driving without a license, broken taillights, and similar offences. Such a pattern of arrests suggest that local sheriff’s deputies are improperly using their 287(g) powers to rid their counties of immigrants, by making arrests that are then used to forcefully deport people. “We need only look at the example of Maricopa County to understand the devastating effects the increased 287(g) program will have on our communities,” said Chris Newman, Legal Programs Director of the National Day Laborer Organizing Network. “The Obama administration must recognize that the 287(g) program is predatory and ripe for corruption and profiling that will harm community stability and safety for everyone.”

Local law enforcement agencies enrolled in the 287(g) ICE program increasingly perpetrate civil rights abuses against immigrants.

MXCIR condemns and rejects the expansion of this failed program that is clearly not consistent with the Humane Immigration Reform promised by President Barack Obama. MXCIR is deeply worried that this administration will continue the last administration’s ineffective program.

MXCIR DEMANDS AN IMMEDIATE STOP OF THE PROGRAM 287(G) UNTIL COMPREHENSIVE IMMIGRATION REFORM IS APPROVED BY THE CONGRESS.

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MXCIR is a national non-partisan leadership network formed by some of the most influential Mexican-American leaders in the United States, including key elected and appointed Mexican Immigrants in the government sphere (in states like Utah, Illinois, Ohio, Virginia, Michigan, etc.). MXCIR members also represent national and local Hispanic/Latino organizations, hometown clubs and federations, labor unions, Spanish-based media, and Mexican business owners, among others.