Fewer people stopped for minor traffic offenses would face deportation under changes federal immigration authorities announced Friday.
Under the changes, suspects would get special consideration when they have been arrested solely for minor traffic offenses, have not been convicted of other crimes, and are not among the priorities for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. ICE officials say those priorities include violent criminals and terrorists.
ICE outlined the changes in response to recommendations from a task force that has been studying a federal fingerprint sharing program operating in jails in Georgia and across the country. Called Secure Communities, the program has come under intense criticism for how it has triggered deportations for many people arrested for traffic offenses, such as driving without a license.
“ICE agrees that enforcement action based solely on a charge for a minor traffic offense is generally not an efficient use of government resources,” ICE said in a letter issued Friday.
ICE’s new policy would not apply to people charged with driving drunk, hit and run, reckless driving resulting in injuries, or other violations that “have the potential of causing serious injury or harm to the public.”
The Homeland Security Advisory Council’s Task Force on Secure Communities -- created at the request of the Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano -- recommended the changes in a critical report issued last year.
“Immigration enforcement against traffic offenders and others arrested only for minor offenses poses the greatest risks of undermining community policing,” the report said.
U.S. Rep. Lamar Smith, a Texas Republican and chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, criticized the government’s decision.
“The Obama administration’s decision to weaken Secure Communities proves that they are not interested in the enforcement of our immigration laws,” he said in a statement Friday. “The Obama administration should put the interests of Americans first, not those of illegal and criminal immigrants.”
Under Secure Communities, everyone booked into a jail is fingerprinted and those prints are checked against millions of others held in a U.S. Homeland Security Department database. The federal government collects fingerprints from a variety of people, including those caught crossing the U.S. border illegally.
When federal authorities find matches, they could seek to deport people held in a participating jail. But that would be done only after their criminal charges have been adjudicated and after they have completed sentences for any crimes they committed in the U.S.
Georgia ranks sixth among states for the number of illegal immigrants deported through Secure Communities, public records show. Since the program started here in November 2009, 5,044 noncitizens have been deported or have voluntarily left the United States.
California holds the No. 1 spot with 65,738 deportations, followed by Texas, Arizona, Florida and North Carolina. Counties in all five of those states started participating in the fingerprint system months before Georgia’s counties did.
Nationally, the largest single group of people deported through the system had committed the least serious offenses -- those punishable by less than one year behind bars, records show. In Georgia, for example, 34 percent of the inmates deported through the program fell into that category. Nineteen percent of those expelled had committed the most serious crimes, including murder, rape or sexual abuse of a minor.
Last month, the AJC sent a Freedom of Information Act request to ICE for records detailing the convictions of all 169,329 people who have been expelled or have voluntarily left the country through Secure Communities. The AJC's records request is still pending.
About the Author
