Secure Communities is a data-sharing program that relies on coordination between federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies.ICE. Secure Communities: A Comprehensive Plan to Identify and Remove Criminal Aliens (Strategic Plan). July 21, 2009. Accessed at http://www.ice.gov/doclib/foia/secure_communities/securecommunitiesstrategicplan09.pdf on April 24, 2011. The program was designed to "check the immigration status of every single person arrested by local police anywhere in the country". As part of the program, fingerprints that are taken upon arrest, which are traditionally forwarded to the FBI, are then also forwarded to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) . If these finger prints match the DHS's Automated Biometric Identification System (IDENT), then the ICE district office decides whether or not to issue a detainer request which can include requesting that the person be detained for up to 48 hours (I-247D), or a request for ICE to be notified upon their release (I-247N).Hiroshi Motomura, Immigration Outside the Law (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2014)
Between July 2015 and January 2017, Secure Communities was replaced by the Priority Enforcement Program (PEP). The goal of PEP was to "target resources toward detaining and deporting individuals convicted of significant criminal offenses."
On January 25, 2017, President Donald Trump signed Executive Order 13768 re-instituting Secure Communities (see section 10), indicating that it would penalize jurisdictions that did not comply with the program, and re-expanded immigration enforcement priorities to include even those not convicted of serious criminal offenses.
On January 20, 2021, President Joe Biden revoked EO 13768.
Currently the ICE indicates that the web page ice.gov/secure-communities is "archived and not reflective of current practice" Overview
Secure Communities relied on integrated databases and partnerships with local and state jailers to build domestic deportation capacity. The goals, as outlined in a 2009 report to Congress, are to: "1. IDENTIFY criminal aliens through modernized information sharing; 2. PRIORITIZE enforcement actions to ensure apprehension and removal of dangerous criminal aliens; and 3. TRANSFORM criminal alien enforcement processes and systems to achieve lasting results."
John Morton of Immigration and Customs Enforcement ICE called Secure Communities "the future of immigration enforcement" because it "focuses our resources on identifying and removing the most serious criminal offenders first and foremost."
Concerns were raised for misrepresenting who was being targeted and what was expected of law enforcement partners. Secure Communities was created administratively, not by congressional mandate and, throughout its implementation, no regulations were promulgated to govern the program's implementation.
History Secure Communities was piloted in 2008.Accessed at http://www.ice.gov/secure_communities/ on April 24, 2011. Under the administration of George W. Bush, ICE recruited a total of 14 jurisdictions. The first program partner was Harris County Sheriff's Office (Texas).Susan Carroll. "Harris County testing immigrant ID program; Sheriff's office the first local law enforcement group to try automated fingerprint system." The Houston Chronicle. October 28, 2008. Pg. B3
By March 2011, under President Barack Obama, the program was expanded to over 1,210 jurisdictions.U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement: Secure Communities Activated Jurisdictions April 2011 ICE sought to have all 3,141 jurisdictions (state, county, and local jails and prisons) participating by 2013.U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement: Projected Deployment by Fiscal Year of Secure Communities program retrieved April 23, 2011
From Secure Communities' activation through March 2011, 140,396 convicted criminal aliens were booked into ICE custody resulting in 72,445 deportations.ICE Activated Jurisdictions, as of March 22, 2011. Each year, law enforcement officers arrest approximately one million noncitizens accused of crimes.David J. Venturella, "Secure Communities: Identifying and Removing Criminal Aliens," The Police Chief 77 (September 2010): 40–49, http://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/naylor/CPIM0910/index.php#/40 Accessed December 14, 2010.
Operation
Biometric database Secure Communities relied on partnerships and biometric technology to build deportation capacity. "ICE and the FBI are working together to take advantage of the strong relationships already forged between the FBI and state and local law enforcement necessary to assist ICE in achieving their goals," said FBI Criminal Justice Information Services (CJIS) Assistant Director Tom Bush in 2009.ICE News Release. "Harris County Sheriff's Office first of several sites in the nation to receive full interoperability technology to help identify criminal aliens. Departments of Homeland Security and Justice providing more identity information to local officers about non U.S. citizen criminal arrests." October 28, 2009. Accessed at http://www.aila.org/content/default.aspx?bc=12053%7C26286%7C27850%7C27039 on April 24, 2011.
For every person arrested and booked, state or local authorities ran fingerprints against federal immigration and criminal databases. IDENT is an DHS-owned database that keeps biometric records of immigration applicants, certain criminals, and those suspected of or known to be terrorists. IAFIS is an FBI-owned database of biometric criminal records. Ordinarily, the fingerprints of county and state arrestees are submitted to the FBI only. Under Secure Communities, the prints were also submitted to ICE. If an individual's fingerprints matched those of a non U.S. citizen (including legal resident), an automated process notifies the Law Enforcement Support Center (LESC) of ICE. Officials then evaluate the case, based on immigration status and criminal history.
The net effect, according to former ICE Secretary Julie L. Myers, was to "create a virtual ICE presence at every local jail."
+Secure Communities Program: Submissions to ICE (2009, 2010, YTD 2011)YearTotal Submissions to ICE2009828,11920103,376,7532011 (first five months)2,414,079
Request When there was a match, ICE could choose to place a "detainer" on the individual. This is a request for the jail to hold that person for up to 48 hours beyond the scheduled release date, so that ICE can take custody and initiate deportation proceedings.Immigration Policy Center: "Immigration Detainers: A Comprehensive Look" February 17, 2010 Legal immigrants convicted of certain crimes are subject to deportation. Undocumented immigrants can be deported even if they have committed no crime. ICE officials told the New York Times that, because of flaws in the database system, about 5,880 people identified through Secure Communities turned out to be United States citizens by 2009. The New Mexico Sentencing Commission is preparing to survey the costs to jails of holding prisoners under ICE detainers.
Offense levels During the program, ICE divided immigrant prisoners into three risk levels:Immigration and Customs Enforcement: Secure Communities Standard Operating Procedures - Appendix A 2009.Department of Homeland Security: Alien Criminal Response Information management System (ACIMe) & Enforcement Integrated Database (EID) September 10, 2010 Level 1: those convicted of serious crimes, such as homicide, kidnapping, robbery, major drug offenses with sentences greater than one year, and offenses involving threats to national security. Level 2: all other felonies; and Level 3: misdemeanors and lesser crimes.
Secure Communities Executive Director David Venturella testified to Congress: "We have adopted a risk-based strategy that focuses, first, on criminal aliens who pose the greatest threat to our communities. To manage this increased workload and prudently scale the system capabilities, we are classifying all criminal aliens based on the severity of the crimes they have been convicted of." According to the agency, Secure Communities prioritizes illegal immigrants who have been accused or convicted of "crimes involving national security, homicide, kidnapping, assault, robbery, sex offenses, and narcotics violations carrying sentences of more than one year."David Venturella. Testimony to House Subcom on Homeland Security Appropriations, Committee on Appropriations. May 12, 2009. page 943
Immigrant activist organizations noted that most unauthorized immigrants deported by ICE had not committed serious criminal offenses.Florida Independent: "Report: Non-criminals, minor violators make up the majority of those deported via Secure Communities" March 28, 2011.San Francisco Bay Guardian: "SF in top 38 counties nationwide that deport 'non-criminal' aliens" March 31, 2011NBC News: "47,000 deported because of fingerprint sharing" August 10, 2010
Others asserted that the number of non-criminal detainees was overstated for political reasons. In June 2010, the AFL-CIO office that represents 7,000 ICE officers issued a no-confidence vote for the current ICE director alleging, among other things, that the number of non-criminal ICE deportees is over-stated due to the fact that many offenders have agreed to be deported if all charges against them are dropped and are being re-categorized as non-criminal. The report cites as proof that although ICE internally reports that 90% of all ICE detainees in its custody were arrested by local authorities, it publicly publishes otherwise.National Council 118 - AFL-CIO: "Vote of No Confidence in ICE Director John Morton" June 25, 2010Washington Times: "Agents’ union disavows leaders of ICE" August 9, 2010
Costs and impacts
The implementation of the program was criticized for not sticking to its original goals of deporting serious criminals, instead using the program as a general deportation facilitation tool. The Obama administration, increasingly aware of the negative impact of its deportation policies on the administration's prospects in the presidential election, moved toward mollifying some aspects of the Secure Communities enforcement policies.
The authors of a 2011 study released by the Chief Justice Earl Warren Institute on Law and Social Policy at UC Berkeley School of Law highlighted several findings:
Only 52% of Secure Communities arrestees were scheduled to have a hearing before a judge. Approximately 88,000 families that included U.S. citizens had a family member arrested under the Secure Communities program. Among Secure Communities arrestees who had an immigration hearing, only 24% had an attorney. ICE arrested roughly 3,600 United States citizens through the program.
The costs of the program were unclear. The Houston Chronicle reported in 2008 that, according to ICE officials, "cost [is] between $930 million and $1 billion. Congress dedicated $200 million for the program in 2008 and set aside $150 million for fiscal year 2009." Currently Secure Communities does not provide for reimbursement to states and localities for the costs of participation.
A New York Times editorial called Secure Communities "misguided," in part for how it "[strains] local resources." Meanwhile, a Washington Post editorial praised the program, asserting that it "has neither inclination nor resources to deport suspects with otherwise clean records who have been arrested for low-level infractions."