"Innocent Until Proven Immigrant" - Wisconsin Joins Secure Communities

This month, Wisconsin became the latest state to join a federal program that will lead to skyrocketing deportations of hardworking people and a scary uptick in civil rights violations in the state.

The program, called "Secure Communities", works like this: When someone is arrested, state or local officials can run the fingerprints through an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) database to determine the person's criminal or immigration history. If local officials receive a "hit", immigration officials are notified and investigate the case to determine whether that person should be deported.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement claims that the program's purpose is to find and deport those convicted of major drug, national security or violent crimes - a goal that most folks can agree on.

However, a friend who worked in the Milwaukee County jail told me she suspects that even before Secure Communities was implemented, rather than focusing on violent offenders, jail officials were contacting Immigration and Customs Enforcement and deporting folks who had never even been convicted of a crime.

She's probably right. A recent Freedom of Information Act request found that Immigration and Customs Enforcement was secretly implementing the program before formal agreements were signed in other states. Also, official reports reveal that a disturbing number of those arrested and deported are never convicted of a crime. According to an Immigration Policy Center report, around 30% of those deported through the program between Oct. 2009 - Sept. 2010 were non-criminals. Other Immigration and Customs Enforcement sources have placed the number at almost half of those arrested. Previous efforts to focus on high-level criminals have seen Immigration and Customs Enforcement arresting and likely deporting up to 83% of folks convicted of minor traffic violations or no crime at all, says IPC.

Wisconsin Police: Stop Abusing the Secure Communities Program

Which means that rather than catching high-level drug dealers, police in Wisconsin will probably be overwhelmingly arresting and deporting small business owners, dishwashers, students, landscapers, mothers and fathers whose worst crime is a broken headlight -- or who have committed no crime at all.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials also deny the program will lead to racial profiling, but a few years ago a friend's Mexican father was arrested and deported after a Milwaukee police officer who stopped to help him with a flat tire ended up reporting him to Immigration and Customs Enforcement. He had committed no crime, so what led the officer to suspect he was undocumented?

Such cases and the implementation of Secure Communities have led to waves of fear in Milwaukee's immigrant community, say activists. Despite the program's name, all of Wisconsin's communities will be less safe if immigrants are too scared to report crimes to the police. Additionally, by giving the police what is essentially the ability to deport people at will, law enforcement will have a dangerous amount of power that will no doubt lead to serious abuse of immigrants by police.

Immigration and Customs Enforcement hopes to implement the plan in every US state by the end of the year. But instead of arresting and deporting high-level criminals, Secure Communities Wisconsin will miss the mark if it simply arrests and deports hardworking immigrants and community members.

Fortunately, a state statute specifies that Wisconsin counties should only fingerprint and check the immigration status of individuals arrested for more serious crimes. Tell Wisconsin Police to only punish individuals with serious crimes under Secure Communities.

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Photo Credit: Blvesboy