Civil and immigrant rights activists demonstrated Tuesday outside the state Democratic Party's headquarters in Atlanta, calling on the Obama administration to scrap a federal fingerprint-sharing program aimed at deporting illegal immigrants.
The demonstrators complained the “Secure Communities” program is tearing families apart and distracting local police from other crime-fighting priorities. They timed their demonstration to coincide with protests in Chicago and other cities across the nation.
Also Tuesday, the National Day Laborer Organizing Network and other groups released a lengthy report condemning the program. Among other things, the report says Secure Communities makes immigrants fearful of reporting crimes to police and results in the deportations of many people who have committed no crimes other than being in the country illegally.
“If the president continues to alienate Latino voters, he will lose the election, plain and simple," Teodoro Maus, president of the Georgia Latino Alliance for Human Rights, said in a prepared statement issued before he and about a dozen others demonstrated in Atlanta. “He cannot expect Latino voters and an entire community to simply stand by and watch as he expands the extremely controversial [Secure Communities] program that tears families apart.”
During the protest, demonstrators handed a state Democratic Party official a petition they said was signed by 439 Georgians who want to see President Barack Obama end the program.
A spokeswoman for Obama's re-election campaign, said, "The president remains committed to fixing our broken immigration system."
Gabriela Domenzain, of Obama for America, said in an email that the Department of Homeland Security and Immigration and Customs Enforcement "have worked with community stakeholders, law enforcement ... to make significant changes to the Secure Communities program, announced on June 17th, to protect civil rights, protect victims of domestic violence and other crimes, and to ensure the program is consistent with the top enforcement priorities."
Local jailers have praised the program, saying it prevents criminals from deceiving them with aliases. Forty-three of Georgia’s 159 counties participate in it now, including Cherokee, Clayton, Cobb, DeKalb, Forsyth, Fulton and Gwinnett counties. All Georgia counties are expected to participate by the end of September 2013.
Under the program, the fingerprints of everyone booked into a jail are checked against those held by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, including people caught crossing the border illegally. If matches are found, federal immigration officials could seek to deport inmates, but only after their criminal charges have been adjudicated and after they have completed sentences for any crimes committed in the U.S.
Federal immigration officials say they are focusing first on deporting the most violent criminals, such as killers, rapists, robbers and kidnappers. Federal statistics, however, show that of the 2,670 people deported from Georgia through the program between October 2008 and April 2011, more than a third -- 955 -- had committed no crimes other than being in the country illegally. The largest share -- 1,271 -- had committed property crimes or misdemeanors.
Citing various concerns about Secure Communities, the governors of Illinois, Massachusetts and New York have announced they wish to pull their states out of the program. Gov. Nathan Deal, however, wants to keep it operating in Georgia.
“The Secure Communities initiative is the rare example of a federal program that works in the fight against illegal immigration,” said Brian Robinson, a spokesman for Deal. “This program allows sharing of information so that we can identify violent offenders who are in this country illegally.
“This is a great idea that should enjoy broad support. There's no doubt the state has a deep interest in identifying and deporting violent criminals who are also here illegally.”
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