Recently, Santa Clara County Supervisors agreed to not participate with a federal program that requires local county jails to share the fingerprints of inmates who are in the country illegal to federal immigration officials and Immigration and Customs Enforcement or ICE.
The national Secure Communities Program, created about a year ago, is designed to collect fingerprint information to locate and ultimately deport those inmates who are in the country illegally. One report credits that the program is responsible for more than 47, 000 deportations.
Other Counties, such as San Mateo and San Francisco had objected to the program, but those protests have been toned down in recent months after the Department of Homeland security said that local jurisdictions can "opt out" of the program. Secretary Napolitano repeated this pledge in a letter to Congresswomen Zoe Lofgren.
However, last month ICE seems to have changed its attitude and indicated that it is willing to work and talk with local authorities, but the agreement to participate is between the Federal Government and the States, not with those local municipalities. It seems that the local authorities, who are to disseminate information regarding their inmates, have no say in the matter.
Today, if an inmate is here illegally, and serves actual time in a county jail, the government may place an immigration hold on him, which leads to eventual deportation. Under the federal program any illegal immigrant who merely books with the jail will face possible deportation. No longer will attorneys be able to prevent deportation by obtaining an alternative to jail, such as electronic monitoring, weekend work etc. Let's see how far Santa Clara will go with this.
If you have been charged with a crime you need legal representation. Call the Law Offices of Erik Steven Johnson for a free consultation at (408) 246-3004. Know Your Rights.
