DHS Documents: Local Police Not Required To Hold Undocumented Immigrants For U.S. Government

By Elise Foley WASHINGTON -- Local law enforcement agencies are not required to hold undocumented immigrants at the request of the federal government, according to internal Department of Homeland Security documents obtained by a coalition of groups critical of the Secure Communities enforcement program. The documents could provide ammunition for jurisdictions that no longer want to participate inSecure Communities, which allows federal immigration authorities to use fingerprints to scan th...

FORUM: Time to craft humane immigration policy by Pedro Rios

By Pedro Rios published in the North County Times Obama Administration officials this week touted their high record numbers of deportations ---- nearly 400,000 last fiscal year ---- as "smart and effective" law enforcement. It is neither. Rather, it reflects a precipitous loss of moral ground by a Washington elite that has lost touch with the political realities of communities for which it is supposed to be representing. In state capitols and cities around the nation, increasingly offic...

Thousands of American citizens flagged for deportation since 2008, report says

  By Liz Goodwin | The Lookout Thousands of  American citizens flagged for deportation since 2008 have been U.S. citizens, a new report says. Secure Communities is a federal program that scours fingerprint logs from local jails for illegal immigrants to deport. A report from the Berkeley Law Center in California finds that 1.6 percent of Secure Communities apprehensions, in a random sample of arrests, were American citizens. "If we extrapolate" that percentage to the more ...

SDIRC Member Updates and Information

FIND OUT WHAT SDIRC MEMBER ORGANIZATIONS ARE UP TO AND GET INVOLVED! The San Diego Immigrant Rights Consortium is comprised of almost 30 organizations that are dedicated to defending immigrant rights. In this post you can find news and updates from four of our member organizations, the California Immigrant Policy Center, the ACLU, the San Diego LGBT Community Center and the San Diego Foundation for Change. Find out what’s going on in San Diego and get involved! California Immigr...

EXCLUSIVE: Escondido woman turned over to immigration after domestic violence incident

By EDWARD SIFUENTES A woman who called the Escondido Police Department to report that she was beaten by her boyfriend was herself arrested and later turned over to immigration authorities after she was booked at the Vista jail, a case that critics say illustrates the problems inherent in local police getting involved in immigration enforcement. Elena Cabrera, 36, said she came home tired from work on the morning of Aug. 20 and wanted to sleep a little. But her then live-in boyfriend, J...

Immigration Enforcement without Reform Wastes Taxpayer Dollars

Immigration Policy Center Press Release October 19, 2011 Washington D.C. - Many political pundits, presidential aspirants, and Members of Congress want to have it both ways when it comes to federal spending on immigration. On the one hand, there is much talk about the need for fiscal austerity, and a Congressional “super-committee” is currently working on slashing federal spending in order to reduce the deficit. On the other hand, even though the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) ju...