Federal Officials Revamp Illegal Immigrant Program

Joanna, an undocumented Mexican woman living in Smyrna, Ga., thinks twice about going to Mexican restaurants. She fears local police are watching them for illegal immigrants. Once, when her kitchen caught fire, she "was determined to put it out" herself, terrified that if she called 911 she would be deported. In nearby Austell, a Guatemalan named Jonathan was shopping at Macy's when store security corralled him. Charged by police with loitering—the charges were later dropped—he spent three months behind bars before being deported.

These are among more than a dozen accounts collected by the American Civil Liberties Union in Georgia's Cobb County to document the effects of the federal government's so-called 287(g) program, which empowers local and state law enforcement agencies to enforce federal immigration laws. The Department of Homeland Security is renegotiating and standardizing the legal arrangements between the feds and the 67 partner agencies that have led to the arrest of at least 43,000 immigrants and the deportation of some 28,000.

First established as wide-ranging authorities in 2006, the policies for use of the 287(g) powers varied by jurisdiction. The new agreements tighten the scope, specifying that law enforcement officials should use 287(g) powers to "remove dangerous criminal aliens." In addition, they stipulate that "all criminal charges that originally caused the offender to be taken into custody" must be pursued, an effort to stop police from using minor infractions as a pretext for deportations. A DHS official says a list of all agencies participating in the revised 287(g) agreement will be released in the coming weeks.

Critics contend that the program leads to racial profiling. Police officials, including the Major Cities Chiefs Association, say that the program makes immigrant communities hesitant to cooperate with authorities and diverts resources from more serious crimes. The ACLU report further contends that since the vast majority of 287(g) agreements have been signed by jurisdictions with high-growth Latino populations, the effort is "propelled by race and not by crime."

But not all police frown on the initiative. The highest-profile local lawman associated with the effort is Joe Arpaio, sheriff of Maricopa County, Ariz. Arpaio's department has used a 287(g) agreement to conduct a sweeping crackdown on illegal immigrants over the past three years, detaining people after routine traffic stops and other minor offenses. The sheriff claims to have identified more than 30,000 illegal U.S. residents.

But his tactics drew widespread criticism as well as an ACLU lawsuit, filed this summer on behalf of a father and son, both legal residents, who say they were detained without probable cause after a routine traffic stop. In March, the Justice Department launched its own investigation of Arpaio for possible federal civil rights violations, including racial profiling. Recently, DHS stripped Arpaio of his 287(g) authority to arrest suspected illegal immigrants based solely on their immigration status. For his part, Arpaio has vowed to continue his department's "crime suppression operations" under his existing authority. 

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