by Knut Dorker in Civil and Human Rights, Crime, Immigration
Posted on October 4, 2010 at 3:22 pm
Last Modified on October 4, 2010 at 4:05 pm
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According to a recent Boston Herald article, a Somerville-based group, Centro Presente, wants to stop the BPD practice of running immigration background checks on those that have been arrested.
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Knut, your title misleads the reader into thinking that this campaign is against all background checks, when in fact, it just opposes checks on immigration. It seems unfair to leave out that important qualifier in a prominent place and to neglect to attempt to understand the rationale behind the campaign which is clearly explained on the Centro Presente website here.
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hmmm. doesn’t seem I can edit the title. Can you as an admin? “Centro Presente doesn’t want immigration background checks on arrestees”
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Done, thanks Knut.
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However, I would say that the explanation of Centro Presente website isn’t very clear and it makes some poor assumptions. It says that the practice of immigration checks on arrestees “encourages the same racial profiling and fast-track to deportation that SB 1070 does.” While SB1070 forces the police departments to arrest anyone suspected of being in the country illigally, Secure Communities program requires a background check on ANY arrestee, regardless of their religion/race/ethnicity/background, after they have been arrested on a felony charge.
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Interesting point, Knut. On Monday, I emailed Patricia Montes, Executive Director of CP to ask her about this. I’m awaiting a reply to my last message to her, but here’s a transcript:
Barry:
Patti:
Barry:
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Not sure if you’re playing devil’s advocate here or what.
The “indiscriminate sweeps” quote is in the context of the stated target of the Secure Communities program being only those violent criminals who are undocumented, when in actuality the program has a better track record of rounding up undocumented immigrants either with no criminal record or lower level criminal offenses. So the program is supposedly targeting one group within the immigrant community when really it is far less discriminating in which immigrants it picks up.
To the issue of racial profiling, this has more to do with the discretion of the local police force, and therefore the program itself is not institutionalizing racial profiling as SB1070 did, but is encouraging racial profiling among those individuals of a given police force who are wont to engage in this behavior. Personally I think most urban police forces in the Boston area recognize the value of community policing and don’t want to jeopardize their relationships with the immigrant community. However if an individual officer decides he or she doesn’t like someone and would like to run them through ICE’s database and see if they can get rid of them, all they have to do is get them on charges that can subsequently be dropped. The moment they are booked they’re in the system.
Obviously an officer would probably not apply this particular mechanism on a white guy, because the majority of immigrants that are being targeted are Latino. I haven’t heard anything from the Serbian, Polish, Irish (etc) immigrant communities to be complaints, but that doesn’t mean they’re not out there.
Does that make sense?
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John, I’m not playing “devil’s advocate”, I’m just trying to understand the claim about racial profiling.
If Ms. Montes’ mention of “indiscriminate sweeps” was meant to reference ICE’s characterization of the program, and not her own, the distinction was not clear. But your interpretation makes sense given her earlier assertion about racial profiling, since the two are contradictory. I’m actually quite skeptical that the program is race-neutral in its results.
I understand and agree that the ability of a bigoted officer to wield the threat of deportation would probably motivate him or her to abuse that power, and in that sense the program encourages racial profiling by exacerbating it.
Knut, what do you think?
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I think I need to point out that if there is a bad/dirty/bigoted/asshole cop out there that doesn’t like you, they can really mess with you regardless of who you are, and can book you even if they know charges are later dropped. And frankly, if you have been arrested once it goes on your permanent record that affects what jobs you can get and how you’re judged in the future.
Barry, you also mentioned the program is not race neutral. Of course it isn’t. Most of illegal immigrants are not race neutral either – there are a lot more illegal immigrants that are Hispanics from Latin America then there are Caucasians from Europe. However the program is fair in that sense that every arrested individual is subject to a background check, regardless of race/ethnicity.
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Knut, of course a bigoted cop can make bogus arrests to annoy people and mark their permanent records, but remember that records of false arrests can be sealed. Also, some people do not work, like stay-at-home mothers or retired folks. So arrests by themselves are limited instruments of power. Therefore, don’t you think that the extra ability to submit arrestees to immigration checks would incentivize bigoted cops to increase race-based arrests?
My comment about the program not being race neutral concerned the racial profile of the arrestees being checked rather than of those who end up in deportation proceedings.
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An unethical cop can make life difficult for anyone (white or brown, citizen or not), but the point of one part of the criticism of this program is that now even cops who are just following procedures will be handing over everyone to DHS (not just ICE) regardless of whether charges are legit, harassment or just not held up after scrutiny. If you are undocumented, it doesn’t matter that you may be paying taxes, have children who are US citizens, are contributing to society and whatever else, your prints will go to DHS, ICE will track you down and then deport you.
Some people think this is a good thing, I do not. That’s a larger argument (that the anti-immigrant crowd usually responds to by putting their fingers in their ears and screaming WHAT PART OF ILLEGAL DON’T YOU UNDERSTAND???).
The other part of this program is that it is a data sharing agreement between the Department of Homeland Security (which is more than ICE) and Department of Justice (FBI, et al) and local jurisdictions. Do you attend a church that protested against the Iraq War? Do you own a registered gun? Are you licensed to sell tobacco? Have you ever given to a charity that provided Tsunami relief to a country that also had a radical Islamic movement?
All sorts of possible questions can be investigated through cross-tabulating and data mining techniques. And these data will be available to contractors in the multi-billion dollar security-industrial complex. Government encroachment on civil liberties is not going to start with US citizens, it will start with immigrants and other vulnerable members of society (ex-cons are a good one). A national id (with scanned in biometriccs) is planned for immigrants and naturalized US citizens. Every reason in the world to assume it will be extended to the rest of us.
It can sound a little conspiracy theorist, but it’s already happening with one segment of the population. You’re pretty naive if you don’t think it will be expanded.
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