It is quite ironic that the Department of Justice has to work hard at having to “restore respect for the law within the culture of the DHS (Department of Homeland Security)” that is, the federal government itself.
Es una ironía que el Departamento de Justicia (DOJ) tenga que esforzarse para “restaurar” el respeto por la ley dentro de la cultura del DHS (Departamento de Seguridad Doméstica), esto es dentro del propio gobierno federal.
DHS: Membrete de "criminales alienígenas" para inmigrantes
Immigration policy during the first year of the Obama administration changed very little and rather perpetuated some of the worst Civil Rights violations by the Bush administration, reported the Immigration Policy Center IPC in its study “The Challenge of Reform.
The criminalizing of immigrants continues under the Obama administration, “in fact federal immigration prosecutions rose to record levels in FY 2009” asserts the IPC, revealing that “under this administration, the federal government is continuing to spend billions of dollars prosecuting non-violent immigration violators while more serious criminals involved in drugs, weapons, and organized crime face a lower probability of prosecution.”
Immigration prosecutions now account for 54% of all federal criminal filings, and will increase 14% for FY 2009, per Syracuse University’s TRAC (Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse).
Much of this prosecution fever is based on the scheme of calling any undocumented immigrant a “criminal alien”. This scheme while in parallel with the vitriol of white supremacist groups is perpetrated by unconstitutionally forcing personal data such as fingerprints into a federal database named with the euphemism “Secure Communities”.
This is how it works according to the IPC : “A closer examination of ICE’s statistics reveals that the use of the term “criminal alien” is misleading and that those identified by “Secure Communities” include large numbers of individuals with no criminal history, individuals charged with (but not convicted of) crimes, and persons “identified” but not found to be deportable. Fingerprint submission and identification is conducted at time of arrest, rather than conviction, thereby presenting the risk of racial profiling and pretextual arrests of those suspected of being unauthorized in order to determine an arrestee’s immigration status.”
Despite these flagrant abuses DHS boasts the fact that now “Secure Communities” expanded from 14 locations to 107 in 2009 and that in its first year 111,000 supposed “criminal aliens” in local custody were purportedly identified.
In reality the “Secure Communities” program is literally contributing to allow extremely violent and organized crime remain unpunished.
Taking away two thirds of our federal resources from combating violent, powerful and well-organized drug, weapon, and human traffickers to solely persecute immigrants is a testament to where our values truly rest.
