(Work has been very busy, I just relaunched our website, and we've had solid plans for the last 6 weeks. A weekend with no plans, and I have a whole bunch of stuff to write about. For God's sake, relatives of my friends are taunting me.)
Recently, the Travis County Sheriff invited the Immigration and Customs Enforcement division of the Department of Homeland Security to set up an office in the Travis County Jail. ICE has recently hired a bunch of new agents and is trying to deport as many folks as possible and one the easiest ways they see to do this is to grab everyone they suspect may be illegal at local jails.
The uproar, even among lawyers, has been very loud. There's a lot of folks who suggest that the effects on locals will be huge by deporting people who were otherwise detained for non-criminal offenses (maybe unpaid traffic or parking tickets??). Families will be ripped apart and forced to leave well-established lives behind (and at one meeting on the subject I attended, several people noted that this had already happened in the mere days that policy had been implemented.)
But reasonable people (and unreasonable ones, too) can disagree about whether this is such a bad thing. After all, I've had a few conversations where I've been made to feel that just because I don't think we should have a screen door at the border, I've got to turn my pinko-liberal card in. So the biggest and best objection I have to the scheme is one Jamie at Austin Criminal Defense Lawyer recently nailed down: that this scheme allows ICE to detain anyone who they think may be here illegally. This means that once the bond for a criminal charge has been set and the detainee is free to go, ICE can essentially hold that person until they prove their citizenship. I don't know about a lot of you, but I don't carry my birth certificate or my passport around with me. So it could theoretically be a couple days before they are released.
This scheme seems similar to the phenomenon known as "DWB", or Driving While Black. This policy encourages law enforcement to engage in discriminatory conduct. Faced with the dilemma of arresting someone or just giving them a citation and a notice to appear? Well, are you brown-skinned? Is your last name Martinez? Well, then you're going to spend a couple days locked up while we sort this thing out. You don't mind, do you?
All Austinites should mind and all Austinites should be pissed off. But I won't hold my breath.
UPDATE: Apparently, Phoenix PD is starting to use the same policy.
UPDATE 2/19/08: If you question whether or not citizens actually are getting caught up in this web, take a look at what ICE's Deputy Director fo Detention and Removal Operations testified to before Congress. Keep in mind, he is admitting that citizens have been deported. Not just detained, but deported!!! As in grabbed off the street and taken to Mexico! Does it have to happen to you or someone you know before you care?
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3 comments:
Obviously you know very little about Immigration law and enforcement. "Profiling against race"? I seriously doubt it. Immigration Agents enforce the law against a very diverse group comprising well over 100 countries from Africa to Asia. Allowing illegal immigration is allowing people to erase their past. A good thing for criminals and terrorists or a blueprint for anarchy? I suggest you read 8 USC 1324. Inducing illegals to stay in the US is a felony. Establishing lineage, true identity, travel itinerary is entirely lawful and constitutional.
Nick, please tell me you understand the difference between being asked to prove your citizenship when entering the country and being detained by local police because you can't prove your citizenship on the spot.
This policy could be expanded to affect citizens and LPRs of South Asian, East Asian, or Middle Eastern origin. Does making more ethnic and racial minorities subject to this kind of treatment make it better in your eyes?
Is it your position that under 8 USC 1324 a law enforcement officer of the State of Texas can approach me on a street corner and require me to prove my citizenship?
nick-
You had a couple of days to answer my questions and you couldn't or didn't so I'll answer them for you:
It's obviously permissible and a damn good idea to ask people at the border and point of entry to prove their citizenship. When you travel out of the country, you do so (or should do so) with the understanding that you will have to satisfactorily prove your identity should you want to enter another country. This is not the case when you are in the middle of the country and do not have the intention of leaving. There is no law that says an officer can approach me on the street without any other information and require me to prove my citizenship. The officer cannot detain me without reasonable suspicion or probable cause that I have committed a crime. Being Hispanic, speaking Spanish, "looking Mexican", "appearing foreign", etc. do not equal probable cause or reasonable suspicion. I'm sorry if you don't like that fact, but that is the law of the United States and the US Constitution.
Your post seemed to say (and feel free to correct me if I'm wrong) that "because all minorities would be subjected to this treatment (that is, random detention by law enforcement officers to determine their immigration status), it's OK". I hope you're joking. Basically this sets up the scenario whereby any officer can detain any person without the least bit of suspicion that they have committed any offense. That is not America; that is a police state. Only non-whites would have to shoulder the burden. Or would you prefer that they be able to approach anyone who looks German, Irish, or English? Does the fact that it would be an equal opportunity police state make it more palatable to you?
Finally, you pointed me to 8 USC 1324. This law prohibits anyone from bringing in an undocumented person into the US or inducing them to come here. A few points:
- State law enforcement agents have no jurisdiction to enforce federal law. They aren't trained to do it, and frankly they don't know enough about it to be effective in doing so.
- 8 USC 1324 doesn't say anything about authorizing the kinds of searches and seizures you seem to be mandating, therefore, the 4th Amendment rules control. Even if it did purport to authorize such seizures, they would be unConstitutional, OK?.
- What the hell does 8 USC 1324 even have to do with it?
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