By Lance Benzel
The Colorado Springs Gazette
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. -- A federal program aimed at identifying illegal immigrants is in its infancy in Colorado, but critics charge it has racked up a troubling record in areas where it has operated for as long as 2 [1/ 2] years.
At issue is Secure Communities, a rapidly expanding initiative in which federal authorities check fingerprints collected by jails against an immigration database.
Government officials say the new fingerprint procedures -- involving hundreds of detention facilities across the country, including El Paso County’s -- are focused on getting “criminal aliens” off the streets for good.
Immigrant groups dispute that portrayal, pointing to federal figures showing that more than 25,000 people deported under the program since October 2008 have no criminal convictions, here or abroad.
Many were deported after charges against them were dropped, the groups say. In some areas, the percentage of non-criminals deported under Secure Communities tops 70 percent, federal figures show.
“This is a deportation dragnet program, masquerading as a public safety program,” said Hans Meyer, a spokesman for the Colorado Immigrant Rights Coalition in Denver, which says the program paves the way for racial profiling and discourages immigrants from reporting crimes.
The debate over Secure Communities is taking on new urgency in Colorado, where a proposed law seeks to penalize communities that want to opt out of the fingerprint procedures.
The bill, which would withold tax revenues from abstaining counties, passed the House last week and is headed to the state senate.
In February, jails in El Paso, Arapaho and Denver counties became the first in Colorado to begin sending booking fingerprints to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, joining more than 1,000 jurisdictions in 38 states enrolled in ICE’s program.
ICE says it hopes to have the program in every jail in the country by 2013.
According to the most recent figures from the Department of Homeland Security, more than 94,000 people have been deported under the program. More than 30 percent were convicted of misdemeanors, not felonies. Another 30 percent - or 27,047 - had no convictions at all.
The percentage is much higher in some jurisdictions, the figures show.
Jefferson Parish, La., leads the nation in noncriminal deportations. There, figures show, 72 percent of the 325 people removed under the program had no criminal convictions, and more than half of the so-called “criminal aliens” deported were guilty of minor crimes. Prince George’s County, Maryland, follows close behind, with 65 percent of the county’s 223 removals involving non-criminals, and Merced County, Cal., rounds out the top three, with 64 percent of the 117 deportations involving people without convictions.
An analysis by the National Day Laborer Organizing Network of Chicago shows that nearly 40 counties across the country have rates of 40 percent and higher when it comes to deporting non-criminals.
In Colorado, nine people were flagged for deportation during the program’s first two weeks, according to the latest figures available. One of them had no convictions.
Immigrant groups seeking to put a face on the deportations point to cases like that of Maria Bolanos, a Prince George’s County, Md., woman who called 911 after a fight with her husband hoping for help.
Instead, Bolanos was booked into the county jail. Although charges against her were dropped, she was turned over to ICE and is fighting a deportation order that would separate her from her 2-year-old daughter, according to newspaper reports.
Sarahi Uribe, of the National Day Labor Organizing Network, said the ICE program operates outside its mandate of targeting serious criminals.
“To us, it sounds like when you actually target people who are criminals, ICE doesn’t meet its quota,” she said.
Uribe called it “offensive and alarming” to bill the program as a crime-fighting initiative when deportation proceedings are routinely triggered at the point of arrest, rather than conviction.
ICE spokeswoman Nicole Navas said the program has identified nearly 56,000 undocumented residents charged with or convicted of serious felonies, of whom more than 24,000 have been deported.
“I think the numbers speak for themselves,” Navas said. “This program has enhanced public safety.”
According to the same figures Navas quoted, nearly 60,000 people have been deported without convictions or with misdemeanor convictions.
Navas said that although those listed as “non-criminals” by ICE have no known convictions, they may pose a security threat, such as gang ties. She added that others may have overstayed a visa, defied a deportation order or sneaked back into the country.
“That’s a federal crime -- they may not have been prosecuted for it, but that is a crime,” she said.
Everyone removed under the program either went before an immigration judge or waived their right to do so, Navas said.
Meyer, of the Colorado Immigrant Rights Coalition, said he recognized the benefit of deporting violent criminals. He said his organization unsuccessfully fought for a compromise measure in which Colorado would send ICE fingerprints after people have been convicted of serious crimes.
That suggestion, as well as a request to exempt women who report domestic violence, were ignored, he said.
“We’re open to a reasonable policy middle ground,” Meyer said.
Navas pledged in a written response to The Gazette that ICE will “exercise discretion to ensure that witnesses and victims are protected.” She did not specify whether they would be spared deportation.
El Paso County Sheriff Terry Maketa, an outspoken advocate of Secure Communities, said its critics openly defy federal laws governing legal residency.
“I think (suspects are) getting their due process by identifying who they are and ... if they have a right to be in this country,” he said. “We have laws. Why should a certain population be exempt from those laws? Who has the right to pick and choose?”
Maketa scoffed at the idea that undocumented residents may be afraid to report crimes for fear of being deported.
“I could say, ‘You know what? Drug dealers aren’t going to report they’re a victim of crime because they could get in trouble for dealing drugs.’”
Under Secure Communities, Colorado’s jails first send fingerprints to the Colorado Bureau of Investigation, which forwards them to immigration authorities. ICE, not local authorities, decides when to pursue deportation.
CBI spokesman Lance Clem said the agency is ready to add the rest of Colorado’s 64 counties, but is waiting until ICE is prepared to handle all the new data. No timeline was available.
Copyright 2011 Freedom Newspapers, Inc.