DHS Tells States: We Don’t Need Your Approval for Secure Communities

[Jefferson23]

on edit to correct title.


The Obama administration has ripped up its contracts with all 39 states that had standing agreements to participate in the federal immigration enforcement program Secure Communities.

The program, however, is not going anywhere.


On Friday, Immigration and Customs Enforcement responded to complaints of inconsistency and deception regarding the program’s design and implementation by canceling every memoranda of understanding, or MOU, with participating states, saying the contract was unnecessary anyway for immigration officials to continue to enforce and expand the program.


“ICE has determined that an MOU is not required to activate or operate Secure Communities for any jurisdiction,” ICE director John Morton wrote in his letter to states’ governors.


“Once a state or local law enforcement agency voluntarily submits fingerprint data to the federal government, no agreement with the state is legally necessary for one part of the federal government to share it with another part.”


The decree comes after three states, Illinois, Massachusetts and New York, attempted to exercise termination clauses written into their MOUs this summer that gave them the option of terminating their involvement in the program. The immigrant rights community responded with a swift and unified condemnation of the policy change.

in full: http://www.alternet.org/newsandviews/article/648015/dhs_tells_states%3A_we_don%E2%80%99t_need_your_approval_for_secure_communities/#paragraph3

[annabanana]

1. ICE is, and has been since the establishment of the DHS, a

rogue agency.

[kickysnana]

2. kick n/t

[awoke_in_2003]

3. You dare question...

the Department of Fatherland, I mean Homeland, Security? :) K&R