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Warning: Cannot modify header information - headers already sent by (output started at /var/www/html/sites/all/modules/memcache/dmemcache.inc:63) in /var/www/html/includes/bootstrap.inc on line 585 Obama Administration Rejects Amnesty International Charges that its Immigration Enforcement Violates Human Rights | NumbersUSA - For Lower Immigration Levels
Obama Administration Rejects Amnesty International Charges that its Immigration Enforcement Violates Human Rights
Friday, March 30, 2012, 9:07 AM EDT - posted on NumbersUSA
A new Amnesty International report criticizes the U.S. government for its treatment of the Hispanic and indegenious communities living along the border, according to gantdaily.com. The report urged the Homeland Security Department to suspend parts of its border enforcement program until the agency's Inspector General can investigate and make recommendations for improvements.
The Homeland Security Department issued a statement denying allegations of human rights abuses.
"Amnesty International's report is based almost entirely on either outdated information or anonymous ancedotes that can be neither investigated nor resolved," the statement said. "Moreover, the report does not offer thoughtful, actionable recommendations for improvement but instead calls for the wholesale suspension of immigration enforcement programs nationwide."
The Amnesty International report claims that Latinos and those that appear to be of Latino origin are disproportionately affected by immigration enforcement measures.
Homeland Security Department officials say the only program that even comes close to the racial profiling alleged by Amnesty International is the Secure Communities Initiative.
The Secure Communities program requires that the fingerprints of anyone who gets arrested are checked against the federal immigration and FBI criminal records. A match between the records could indicate the person arrested is an illegal alien who should be deported.
Homeland Security Department officials say ethnic discrimination is not the purpose of the Secure Communities Initiative. Instead, the program reduces "the risk of discrimination or racial profiling because the program applies to all who are arrested and booked for crime, including U.S. citizens and legal permanent residents," a Homeland Security Department statement said.
Along with the Homeland Security Department, a denial came from the Texas Department of Public Safety.
"The State of Texas does not have immigration laws. However, DPS officers arrest criminal aliens, regardless of country of origin, when they violate state laws," spokesman Tom Vinger said in a statement.
NumbersUSA President Roy Beck praises the Obama Administration for denouncing the Amnesty International report.
"It is gratifying to see the Obama Administration stand up against the too-prevalent nonsense that enforcing immigration laws generally is a violation of human rights," NumbersUSA President Roy Beck said. "We stand behind the Administration and most of the pro-enforcement community in supporting continuing work to ensure that illegal aliens are treated humanely during the arrest, detention and deportation processes. We regret that the Obama Administration at times feeds the perception that immigration enforcement is a bad thing, such as when it argues against various state immigration enforcement laws."
Beaufort County has made great strides in creating a lawful employment environment in the South Carolina Low Country by implementing a creative and pioneering auditing program to help local businesses achieve compliance with immigration laws while exposing problems with fraudulent documents that enable illegal workers to get jobs. The effectiveness of this effort is further enhanced by strong state laws on illegal hiring and the county’s participation in the 287(g) program. These enable local law enforcement agencies to prosecute violators and have illegal workers removed. Local officials report signs that the illegal alien population in Beaufort County has been noticeably reduced.
By Jessica Vaughan - Center for Immigration Studies
Support Tougher Enforcement - Wednesday, October 28, 2009
Sixty-one percent of Arizona voters approve of the job that Sheriff Joe Arpaio is doing in Maricopa County. Sixty percent disagreed with the federal governments decision to restrict Arpaio's immigration enforcement efforts.
Both actions drew criticism from groups seeking tougher immigration enforcement.
"Illinois is without competition the most pro-illegal immigration state in the country, even before this," said Roy Beck, executive director of the Virginia-based NumbersUSA organization.
State and local involvement in immigration-law enforcement is essential these days, as foreign nationals bent on terrorism remain a looming threat, as Mexican drug cartels and other international crime syndicates extend their reach into American communities, and as illegal workers increasingly resort to identity fraud to stay employed in scarce jobs.
By utilizing immigration-law-enforcement tools in connection with local crime-suppression operations in Maricopa County, Sheriff Joe Arpaio has been keeping us all safer.
By Jessica M. Vaughn and James R. Edwards -- Arizona Republic Op-Ed
In response to the news, NumbersUSA Vice President of Government Relations Rosemary Jenks said Monday afternoon, "State and local law enforcement officers have the inherent authority to enforce all the laws of our land, including immigration laws, with or without 287(g) agreements ... society as a whole benefits if officers have the training they need to identify immigration violators wherever they may encounter them ... NumbersUSA will continue to encourage state and local law enforcement officers to use their inherent authority and their common sense to enforce our immigration laws."
Hvidston said We the People, California Crusaders is a San Bernardino County group which works peacefully within the political system and is affiliated with Numbers USA, a national group which seeks to limit illegal immigration.
“We target institutions which are the real culprits behind people who are in our country illegally,” she said.
The Obama Administration has decided to kill one of America’s
most successful interior enforcement programs to combat illegal immigration.
This decision will undermine state and local law enforcement, encourage
additional illegal immigration, and make America less secure.
These concerns are misplaced, and they put communities at risk. The Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department, working in conjunction with the Board of Supervisors, implemented the 287g program years ago, and we were also early adopters of Secure Communities; we have not had significant problems.
We did have a serious problem, however, before implementing the programs. We had a growing number of criminal illegal immigrants who were taken into custody and eventually had to be released back onto our streets.
“No Exit From a Bad Program” (editorial, Feb. 28) claims that the Secure Communities program is problematic because it results in the arrest and deportation of illegal immigrants with little or no criminal record. Such a view is misguided and dangerous.
Secure Communities is the Department of Homeland Security’s comprehensive strategy to improve the identification and removal of criminal aliens from the United States.
While not perfect, this sensible program allows for an automated immigration-history check to be run at the same time as the routine criminal-history check done on every person booked into a local jail. It flags criminals who are foreign nationals and sends a notification to D.H.S., which can choose to remove the offender.
Rep. Sue Myrick -- New York Times
To the Editor:
“No Exit From a Bad Program” (editorial, Feb. 28) claims that the Secure Communities program is problematic because it results in the arrest and deportation of illegal immigrants with little or no criminal record. Such a view is misguided and dangerous.
Secure Communities is the Department of Homeland Security’s comprehensive strategy to improve the identification and removal of criminal aliens from the United States.
While not perfect, this sensible program allows for an automated immigration-history check to be run at the same time as the routine criminal-history check done on every person booked into a local jail. It flags criminals who are foreign nationals and sends a notification to D.H.S., which can choose to remove the offender.
Secure Communities simply makes sense. Who wouldn’t want to remove an illegal immigrant who has been arrested by the police for a criminal offense? To make our streets safer, local law enforcement agencies should embrace the Secure Communities program. Opposition to this program is dangerous and foolish.
A controversial program that deputizes local police officers to enforce immigration laws sent the Hispanic population plummeting in many places across the country, including Prince William and Frederick counties, according to a new report released Monday by the Migration Policy Institute.
In some cases, the initial decrease was dramatic, with Frederick County losing 61 percent of its Hispanic population between 2007 and 2009, and Prince William County losing almost 21 percent in the same period, according to the report, which relied on census data and school enrollment figures. The Hispanic populations have since rebounded but not to their previous levels.
Yesterday, SEIU Exec. Vice President Eliseo Medina and national and community leaders of the Reform Immigration FOR America campaign gathered for a teleconference call to discuss the fundamental flaws in the 287g immigration enforcement program.
This call came on the heels of the release of the report by the Department of Homeland Security's Office of the Inspector General (OIG) on the Immigration and Custom Enforcement's 287(g) program, which gives state and local law enforcement agencies authority to enforce immigration laws. The report points to serious problems with oversight and accountability, indicating that ICE has little control over the program.
The word appears to be getting out in Gwinnett County: If you're an illegal immigrant, don't get arrested. Because if you do, you could be shipped out of the United States.
The Gwinnett County Sheriff's Department has fewer inmates in its jail than at any other time in Sheriff Butch Conway's 13 years on the job.
"The folks from ICE, I needed them for resources," McLhinney said. "But they needed me in the community because I was there for 28 years and I knew the crime problems."
"For local law enforcement not to be involved in enforcing illegal immigration ties their hands," McLhinney said, and he added that the wrong message is sent when police officers are told to enforce some laws, but not others.
While Sheriff Joe Arpaio in Phoenix gets all the media attention for his crackdown on illegal immigrants, eight deputies in an unremarkable office at the Harris County Jail are posting similar numbers for deportation -- and doing so without controversy.
Working two per shift, the deputies refer roughly 1,000 suspected illegal immigrants to federal Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) authorities every month, helping to make the Southern District of Texas by far the busiest in the nation for illegal-immigration prosecutions.
Accusing the federal government of hampering local attempts to combat illegal immigration, state Sen. Russell Pearce, Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio and some of Arizona's most hawkish public figures on border security pledged on Wednesday to redouble their efforts with new legislation and a citizens initiative.
The man who likes to call himself "America's toughest sheriff," Joe Arpaio of Maricopa County, Ariz., is planning a Friday showdown with the feds.
The sheriff has announced he will defy the U.S. Department of Homeland Security by doing a street sweep for illegal immigrants one day after the expiration of the agreement that has permitted him to conduct such operations for the past three years. The sheriff has said he expects the deal not to be extended, though federal officials have remained publicly noncommittal.
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