This is why this country is going to hell in a handbasket in a hurry. If this were “American” citizens, and they committed a crime, they would be arrested and fingerprinted. Instead, this country butt kisses illegals, and condones their criminal activity. So what we have now is the state of Washington refusing to sign an agreement that would allow the fingerprints of people booked into local jails to be checked against a national immigration database.
ICE says that the idea behind Secure Communities, a federal program rolling out across the country, is to identify, detain and eventually deport those subject to removal from the country, with a particular focus on those who have committed serious crimes. Wake up, entering a country illegally is a serious crime. But now the do gooders, so called advocates say that it snags immigrants who’ve committed only minor offenses and could discourage people from reporting crimes to the police. Come on here, since when will illegals report crimes?
This program is in 788 jurisdictions and 34 states. In the past two years has led to the expulsion of some 46,800 individuals from the country. The DHS runs the program, through ICE, and said it will be in every jail nationwide by 2013. So how do these states figure they can bypass the law? ICE has been trying to reach agreements with the agency in each state that serves as that state’s clearinghouse for fingerprint data. Any agreement with that agency would cover all local jurisdictions in the state.
Now in Washington state, that agency is the State Patrol, which refuses to sign the agreement.
“We are a state law-enforcement agency, and we don’t want to go down the road of being an immigration agency,” Patrol spokesman Bob Calkins said. “The chief and the governor are of the same mind on this.”
Hold on here, then enforce the laws that have been broken, as illegal entry into a country is breaking the law. Meanwhile our wonderful governor Gregoire hasn’t made a decision on the agreement.
Ira Mehlman, spokesman for the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), which advocates for stronger immigration enforcement, said Washington’s position is wrongheaded political correctness.
Those who advocate for immigrants and worked with the state in evaluating the program said there are still too many unanswered questions about how it works.
ICE, they say, falsely promotes this as a program that targets only serious criminals. In reality, they point out, the fingerprints of those who become naturalized citizens or obtain their green cards are also in the immigration database along with those who might have encountered immigration officers for any number of other reasons – and a traffic violation that results in their arrest might land them in deportation proceedings. Well hello, the same thing happens to US citizens, if they are in a traffic stop…
Yet ICE says, only the fingerprints of people who have been arrested are submitted for screening. ICE is phasing the program in, county by county, as it builds its infrastructure over the next few years, with immediate activation in those jurisdictions with the largest caseloads.
In California, where the state’s Department of Justice has signed the agreement with ICE, officials have inquired about opting out of participation. San Francisco says the program violates its status as a sanctuary city, which forbids cooperation with ICE unless mandated by law. Yeah and San Francisco is one city that takes money from the feds, for enforcing immigration laws, yet they break the law by giving illegals sanctuary. What sense does that make?
ICE now says communities may not opt out, after earlier saying they would be allowed to.Secure Communities expands on a program ICE already operates across the country that allows its officers to check the names of people who’ve been booked into jails and prisons against ICE’s national database. ICE then places a detainer on those deemed deportable, requesting that local law enforcement hold them for up to 48 hours until an ICE officer can pick the person up.
