Northern Manhattan Communities for Immigrants Rights http://www.nmcir.org
Governor Paterson, Stop ICE’s “Secure Communities” in New York Now!
RALLY in Manhattan, Thursday December 9, 2010, 11am at Gov. Paterson’s NYC Office
In May 2010, NY State signed a Memorandum of Agreement with ICE [the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency] approving “Secure Communities,” in which local police send fingerprints of all arrestees to Department of Homeland Security databases. This costly program will push thousands more immigrants into the unjust detention and deportation system, while making us all less safe and violating our rights.
ICE has repeatedly misrepresented and lied about the program to the state and nation. Join us in demanding that Governor Paterson terminate the Secure Communities agreement and that the federal courts require ICE to share all documents on “opting out” of the program. [This refers to the “option” for cities to refuse to participate in the local police/ ICE collaboration required by the Secure Communities program.-ed]
New York State should not cooperate with ICE [the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency] in tearing apart immigrant families.
After the rally, a federal judge presiding over NDLON v. ICE will consider an emergency injunction ordering ICE to make documents public regarding whether jurisdictions can refuse to participate in Secure Communities. Please come to the hearing to show your support for this injunction at 2:00 at US District Court at 500 Pearl Street, Courtroom 15C, NY, NY.
Join the coalition fighting to stop “Secure Communities” in New York.
Northern Manhattan Coalition for Immigrant Rights (NMCIR) works with over 6,000 families a year on issues such as immigration, citizenship, deportation and voter participation focusing on keeping families together, facilitating integration and building community power. The Coalition Educates, Organizes and Defends the Immigrant Community.
For more information: Lili Salmeron, NMCIR, 212-781-0355 or co@nmcir.org
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Rights Groups Take ICE to Court as Hundreds Rally in New York to Opt-Out of Dragnet Immigration Program: Advocates Request Emergency Injunction to Open the Record on ICE-Police Collaboration Program
“To keep our families together, we need to keep police and ICE separate. The Orwellian-named Secure Communities program does the opposite of making us safer,” said Sarahí Uribe of NDLON. “We see innocent people swept up in a massive dragnet sending a chilling effect through migrant communities.”
December 9, 2010, New York City– Today, the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) and the Kathryn O. Greenberg Immigration Justice Clinic of Cardozo Law School will request an emergency injunction in federal court in a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit NDLON v. ICE filed on behalf of the National Day Laborer Organization Network (NDLON).
The case requests information regarding the controversial Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Secure Communities program and the emergency injunction specifically requests documents related to the voluntary nature of the program, which has been unclear thus far. Advocates and community leaders across the country have called this program “dangerous” and say it strains local law enforcement and resources while damaging the already tenuous relationship between immigrant communities and the police.
“To keep our families together, we need to keep police and ICE separate. The Orwellian-named Secure Communities program does the opposite of making us safer,” said Sarahí Uribe of NDLON. “We see innocent people swept up in a massive dragnet sending a chilling effect through migrant communities.”
Advocates argue that ICE’S unwillingness to provide clear information about the program’s opt-out process at a time when municipalities such as San Francisco and Santa Clara in California and Arlington, Virginia voted to opt-out and numerous others localities are deliberating their participation, requires court-ordered immediate access to key documents.
“As advocates across the country are pushing on the state and local levels to find a way to opt-out of Secure Communities, we are going to court to obtain information that the public and advocates need to determine how and if it’s possible to opt-out,” said CCR staff attorney Sunita Patel. “Only the government has the information everyone needs.”
The groups say immigration authorities in charge of the program, which culls fingerprint data from local jails, have been inconsistent and dishonest in representing the relationship between local governments and the federal program.
In an email to Governor Patterson, the agency said “[W]e get it. No one will be forced.’]. In a press conference two months later, ICE wrote: “[W]e do not see this as an opt-in opt-out program.”
At a recent speaking engagement, Assistant Director of Secure Communities David Venturella was confronted by Maria Bolaños, a domestic violence survivor whose call for help resulted in deportation proceedings under the program. His accusation of inaccurate reporting moved the Washington Post to publish “ICE Reversals Sowing Mistrust.” Citing cases like Bolaños as a reason for concern, cities worried about the program’s effects on community-policing efforts are interested in opting-out of the overly broad dragnet. The on-going dishonesty and desire to opt-out makes gives today’s injunction urgency.
With thirteen states yet to join the program, New York and numerous other activated jurisdictions still trying to get out, and its current spokespeople unwilling to set the record straight, advocates are asking a judge to counteract the misinformation by opening the files related to the “opt-out” policies immediately.
For more information on Secure Communities, visit http://www.UncoverTheTruth.com
The Center for Constitutional Rights is dedicated to advancing and protecting the rights guaranteed by the United States Constitution and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Founded in 1966 by attorneys who represented civil rights movements in the South, CCR is a non-profit legal and educational organization committed to the creative use of law as a positive force for social change.
Contact: press@ccrjustice.org
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Frontlines comment:
In the course of describing the lawsuit and its political context, this article states that one of the reasons for opposing the Safe Communities program is that it “strains local law enforcement and resources while damaging the already tenuous relationship between immigrant communities and the police.”
It’s necessary to step back and look at the role of local police departments. On city streets across the country, police are shooting down and brutalizing Black and Latino youth with impunity; enforcing “anti-gang” injunctions that take away the legal rights of whole communities of people; saturating poor Black, Latino and immigrant communities with police patrols in order to spread fear as broadly as possible; and suppressing the many forms of people’s resistance to these oppressive conditions. Given all of this, the people have no interest in helping to ease the “strain [on] local law enforcement and resources”–in other words, helping the police figure out how to deploy their forces most effectively against the people.
Likewise, those oppressed by the system have no interest in building a better relationship with local police departments through “community policing” or other methods of pacification. For the people, the solution to their problems is to build powerful grassroots movements against the repressive system we live under.
Frontlines of Revolutionary Struggle 