Secretary Napolitano Announces New Agreement for State and Local Immigration Enforcement Partnerships & Adds 11 New Agreements
- United States
- 09/04/2009
On July 10, 2009, Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Janet Napolitano announced that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has standardized the Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) used to enter into “287(g)” partnerships providing uniform policies for partner state and local immigration enforcement efforts throughout the United States. Additionally, ICE announced 11 new 287(g) agreements with law enforcement agencies from around the country. To date, ICE has trained more than 1,000 officers operating under 66 local 287(g) agreements between DHS and law enforcement agencies nationwide.
Section 287(g) of the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) authorizes state or local police to be trained in enforcing immigration laws if they first enter into an agreement with the U.S. attorney general to do so. MOAs have been viewed as providing little or nothing in the way of monitoring or compliance measurement and having minimal or ineffectual complaint procedures. The §287(g) program is controversial concerning the effect it has on the reporting of crimes by victims or witnesses who are undocumented or have undocumented family members. Nonetheless local police essentially deputized and trained to enforce immigration laws, as if they were ICE agents themselves, is an increasing trend.
ICE Assistant Secretary John Morton is very aware of the criticisms of and concerns about the 287(g) program. He indicated that ICE has taken significant steps to change the face of the program, and that he must personally approve all new delegations. The new delegations will have a different focus with an emphasis on threats to public safety and a movement away from straight civil immigration law violations. All MOAs will have sunsets, and will have individualized appendices that lay out what the locale’s authority is and is not. It is intended that 287(g) programs will have more robust management and supervision, and be subject to more reporting and data collection.
Of much greater concern, however, is that most police participation in immigration enforcement likely occurs outside §287(g) agreements with little supervision or monitoring, particularly with respect to racial profiling and the use of a simple traffic stop as a pretext to inquire about immigration status, a call to ICE, or a check of the computer to see if there is an outstanding deportation order. Such a stop by police may be illegal and able to be challenged by an immigration attorney. Non-American citizens with criminal convictions need to be cautious in today’s anti-immigrant environment.
