ImmigrationDHS will provide immigration data demanded by House Republicans

The Obama administration has agreed to provide information requested by House Republicans regarding its Secure Communities program and the process it uses to determine which illegal immigrants should be deported.

At a 2 December hearing held by the Immigration Subcommittee of the House Judiciary Committee, Gary Mead, the executive associate director for enforcement and removal operations at U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) told members that his agency would comply with a subpoena issued by the committee on 4 November.

“I am confident that we will supply the information you have requested,”Mead told committee members.

Secure Communities is an information sharing program established in 2008 under which every individual arrested by state and local law enforcement agencies has his or her fingerprints checked against an FBI criminal history database and DHS immigration records. Illegal immigrants identified by the program are then processed by ICE for deportation.

House Republicans have raised concerns over a recent decision by the Obama administration to prioritize deportations for illegal immigrants who represent national security risks, have committed serious crimes, or have a criminal record, shifting the focus of deportation cases away from non-violent immigrants.

On 22 August Judiciary Committee Chairman Lamar Smith (R-Texas) sent a written request for the data to DHS, which it did not provide, forcing the Committee to issue a subpoena.

“Unfortunately, Secure Communities has fallen prey to the White House’s demands that DHS bypass Congress and use discretionary Executive Branch authorities to grant back-door amnesty,” said Smith at the hearing. 

“While the program will be operational in all jurisdictions by 2013, DHS has announced “changes” to Secure Communities that could potentially allow millions of illegal and criminal immigrants to avoid deportation and work in the U.S., taking jobs away from Americans.” 

The Obama administration contends that given the limited resources available, it is impossible to deport every illegal immigrant arrested. Along with allowing ICE officials to prioritize which illegal immigrants it deports, ICE will also be conducting a review of all 300,000 deportation cases currently in progress, in an effort to ease the strain on the overburdened immigration court system.

According to Mead, ICE deported a record 397,000 illegal immigrants in the 2011 fiscal year. 55 percent of those deported were convicted criminals, an 89 percent increase since 2008, and 90 percent fell within ICE’s priority categories.

The Secure Communities program has also faced criticism from immigrant rights advocates, who claim that the program has damaged relationships between immigrant communities and local law enforcement.

“Immigrants will continue to fear that contact with the police could lead to deportation, crimes will go unreported and criminals will remain free to prey on others,” Arturo Venegas Jr., the retired chief of police in Sacramento, Calif., told the panel.

House Republicans believe that any illegal immigrant identified by the Secure Communities program should be deported, regardless of whether or not they have a criminal record.

“The administration is putting illegal immigrants ahead of the interests of American taxpayers and unemployed Americans.  The administration should enforce all the laws on the books, not just the ones it likes,” said Smith