ICE’s “Secure Communities” Makes Mistakes, Says Congresswoman

Congresswoman Maxine Waters (D-California) testified that Secure Communities is prone to making mistakes about immigration status, according to Fronteras. The Secure Communities (SC) program, which began in 2008, is a program that facilitates the sharing of fingerprint information between local law enforcement agencies and the Department of Homeland Security, in particular, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency.

According to a recent article on Fronteras, 397,000 undocumented immigrants were deported in 2011 because of Secure Communities. An excerpt from Fronteras’ report below:

Addressing Gary Mead, the executive associate director of enforcement and removal operations for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), Waters asked why 93 percent of all people deported with the help of Secure Communities have been Latinos.

“It is not as a result of racial profiling or country of origin,” Mead said. “We have enforcement programs that look for those persons that were here unlawfully and we apply the law equally to them.”

Both Democrat and Republican lawmakers accused ICE of a lack of transparency when it comes to deportations and other immigration enforcement methods.

Read more about Turnstyle News’ coverage on Secure Communities here.