Proposal to opt out of deportation law advances in California

San Francisco Assemblyman Tom Ammiano’s Trust Act is being reviewed by the California State Senate, having already been approved by the Assembly in May.  The Trust Act will allow California cities and counties to opt out of the Obama Administration’s Secure Communities program, a national measure that forces city and county police to submit the fingerprints of everyone they arrest to a national data bank to be checked by not only the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), but the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) as well.  This way, illegal immigrants who are arrested can be deported, regardless of the severity of the crime committed.  Originally, the Secure Communities program was intended to target only violent criminals who were also illegal immigrants, but in practice the program has led to the deportation of about 1 million people, most of whom were arrested for traffic violations.  In the Bay Area alone, 3,900 immigrants were deported, yet 38 percent of those were never even convicted of a crime.  In Contra Costa, the county with the highest number of deportations, 46 percent of the 2,560 individuals deported had not committed any crime, while only 23 percent of them had committed what are considered to be serious offenses. 

The opt out proposal has mixed support in the state of California.  While immigration activists deem the Secure Communities program a sort of “deportation dragnet,” while several law enforcement oppose the Trust Act, as they believe the Obama Administration’s program has helped them to remove immigrant inmates from their jails.  There is also financial incentive to support Secure Communities:  counties can seek federal reimbursement for inmates placed on immigration hold and jailed for more than three days.  “Wealthy communities like San Francisco may be able to afford not to seek federal reimbursement for the cost of dealing with criminal illegal immigrants, but most other communities throughout California…are facing rough times,” said El Cajon Senator Joel Anderson. 

If the Trust Act is passed, California will join Massachusetts, Illinois, and New York, who have already chosen not to participate in the Secure Communities Program. 

O’Brian, Matt.  “California legislators look at opting out of federal immigration enforcement network.”  Contra Costa Times.  13 June 2011

“Avanza propuesta de California contra programa de deportaciones.”  Uniradio Informa.  21 June 2011

Economist: Taking on the Narcos, and their American Guns

Apr 2nd 2009 | EL PASO AND MEXICO CITY

Senior American officials are trooping to Mexico with assurances of support in its drug war. Will warm words be backed up by action?

ARIZONA’S attorney-general, Terry Goddard, says he started to worry about American guns ending up in the hands of Mexican drug traffickers two years ago. That was after a meeting in Cuernavaca with Mexico’s attorney-general, Eduardo Medina Mora, who urged him and several of his counterparts from other American states to enforce the law banning the export of assault weapons that can be legally bought north of the border. Keen to help, Mr Goddard spent months building a case alleging that George Iknadosian, the owner of a Phoenix gun shop, had knowingly sold some 700 assault weapons to “straw men” working for the narcos. It could have been a landmark case. Mr Iknadosian pleaded not guilty, and last month a state judge threw out all the charges against him on a point of law. Prosecutors blamed a clash between federal and state law on arms smuggling.

This is just one example of how hard it will be for the United States to implement its promise to collaborate with Mexico in quelling drug-related violence. But Mexican officials are pleased that at least the promise has been made. During a two-day visit last month, Hillary Clinton, the secretary of state, admitted that America’s “insatiable demand for illegal drugs fuels the drug trade” and that “our inability to prevent weapons from being illegally smuggled across the border to arm these criminals causes the deaths of police officers, soldiers and civilians” in Mexico.

Her visit was the clearest sign that the American administration has woken up to what is at stake in the battle unleashed by Mexico’s president, Felipe Calderón, against the drug “cartels”, in which 10,000 people have died since December 2006. She was to be followed on April 2nd by Janet Napolitano, the secretary for homeland security, and Eric Holder, the attorney-general. Barack Obama himself will drop in for talks with Mr Calderón before both attend the Summit of the Americas in Trinidad on April 17th.

“They finally started paying attention,” says Arturo Sarukhan, Mexico’s ambassador in Washington. That is partly because some Americans fear the violence is starting to spread northward, although such worries look exaggerated (see article). But it is also in part owing to a war of words that has raged across the border in recent weeks.

This began with a report in November from the United States Joint Forces Command bracketing Mexico and Pakistan as the two countries most at risk of becoming “failed states”. Dennis Blair, the new director of national intelligence, then told a Senate committee that the corruption and violence of the drug cartels was hindering the Mexican government from controlling part of its territory. Having largely ignored Mexico’s fight against the drug gangs for the past two years, American television has suddenly latched on to it, in sensationalist terms. Spurred on by his own media, Mr Calderón, by instinct an American ally, responded by accusing American officials of corrupt complicity in the drug trade.

So Mrs Clinton’s comments were welcomed in Mexico. As to whether the words will lead to practical co-operation, Mexican officials say they are getting more help with intelligence on the drug gangs from their American counterparts. But Mrs Clinton’s promise of Black Hawk helicopters for the Mexican police was undercut by Congress’s pruning of funding for the Mérida Initiative, a plan under which Mexico was to receive $1.4 billion in aid over three years. American officials now say they will seek to reverse the cut. But more than aid, Mexico wants the Americans to crack down on drug consumption, as well as the movement of guns and money southward. That is where the big difficulties lie.

The Obama administration promises to send several hundred more agents to the border, both from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms and from Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The idea is that they will search southbound traffic and railcars. Mr Calderón wants the Americans to tip off their Mexican counterparts about gun trafficking, and to curb gun sales. Mrs Clinton said she favours the reinstatement of a federal ban on selling semi-automatic “assault weapons” such as AK-47s. Mexican police claim that since the ban lapsed in 2004, the cartels have become much more powerfully armed: of 30,000 guns they have seized since December 2006, 15,000 are assault weapons, nearly all bought at the 7,500 or so gun shops on the American side of the border.

But the gun lobby opposes the ban. John Barrasso, a Republican senator from Wyoming, said in El Paso this week that violence in Mexico is an argument for more assault weapons, not fewer: “Why would you disarm someone when they potentially could get caught in the crossfire?” He continued: “The United States will not surrender our second-amendment rights for Mexico’s border problem.”

Facing so many other battles, Mr Obama would surely prefer not to be drawn into this one. Mr Sarukhan says that merely enforcing existing gun laws would be a big help. For Mexico, too, there are dangers in framing its relations with the United States purely around security. Trade, economic integration and immigration are equally vital. For now, however, the drug war has captured the headlines in both countries, leaving the politicians with no choice but to respond.