Secure Communities Dragnet Includes US Citizens

Reading Guide to Report Available at: http://uncoverthetruth.org/resources/warren-report/

 
October 19, 2011, New York, NY - The Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) and the National Day Laborer Organizing Network (NDLON) welcome the publication of a new report by the Warren Institute at UC Berkeley School of Law that exposes the violations of the rights of both citizens and non-citizens alike by the Secure Communities program. Released on the heels of the hard-hitting PBS expose, Lost in Detention, the new report, “Secure Communities by the Numbers: An Analysis of Demographics and Due Process],” is the first in a series to analyze federal government data related to Secure Communities obtained through the Freedom of Information Act lawsuit, NDLON v. ICE, brought by the Center for Constitutional Rights, NDLON and the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law. It exposes serious due process concerns with the continued implementation and expansion of the program.
 
“The Warren Institute study demonstrates how deeply U.S. citizens’ own rights have been eroded in the name of immigration enforcement. The Obama administration should treat this study as the final nail in the coffin of a program that should have been buried long ago,” explains Sarahi Uribe, Organizer for the National Day Laborer Organizing Network.
 
The report reveals that over 3,600 U.S. citizens have been apprehended through the Secure Communities program and more than one-third of the individuals identified for deportation have a spouse or child who is a U.S. citizen, thus extending the impact of the program to over 88,000 families with citizens. Furthermore, once funneled through the system, only 52 percent of detainees have a hearing before an immigration judge; and 83% of people arrested through Secure Communities are placed in immigration detention.
 
Said CCR attorney Sunita Patel, “This new report further confirms what we know from the damning records released through our lawsuit and the experience of immigrant communities. Secure Communities has been and will always be a dangerously flawed program.  The Obama Administration must disconnect immigration enforcement from law enforcement. The results of merging the two systems are erosion of public safety and civil rights.”
 
For a short reading guide to the report, compiled by the Center for Constitutional Rights and NDLON, go to:  http://uncoverthetruth.org/resources/warren-report/ To learn more about advocacy to end the Secure Communities program, go to http://www.uncoverthetruth.org.
 
 
 
The mission of the National Day Laborer Organization Networkis to improve the lives of day laborers in the U.S. by unifying and strengthening its member organizations to be more strategic and effective in their efforts to develop leadership, mobilize day laborers in order to protect and expand their civil, labor and human rights. Visit www.ndlon.org.

The Center for Constitutional Rights works with communities under threat to fight for justice and liberation through litigation, advocacy, and strategic communications. Since 1966, the Center for Constitutional Rights has taken on oppressive systems of power, including structural racism, gender oppression, economic inequity, and governmental overreach. Learn more at ccrjustice.org.

 

Last modified 

October 19, 2011