Social Justice Groups Rally Against Racial and Immigrant Profiling

BOSTON/State House - Advocates for immigrant rights and many other social justice causes gathered in the cold in front of the Massachusetts State House yesterday to speak out against what they called "racism" and "racial profiling" in the Secure Communities Program. According to the Washington D.C. based non-profit Immigration Policy Center when a person is arrested and booked into jail "...his or her fingerprints are checked against the U.S. Visitor and Immigrant Status Indicator Technology Program (US-VISIT) and the Automated Biometric Identification System (IDENT)...This fingerprint check allows state and local law enforcement and ICE automatically and immediately to search the databases for an individual’s criminal and immigration history." When a match between the person and an immigration violation arises the federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency (ICE) and local law enforcement are notified and a "detainer" or an order to hold the person arrested is issued giving federal authorities jurisdiction over that individual according to the Center's fact sheet. According to the ICE website the program - being considered for adoption statewide in Massachusetts - "improves public safety every day by transforming the way criminal aliens are identified and removed from the United States." Criticizing the federal program activists say its intent and execution is "an attack on people's civil rights." In an interview with OMB just prior to the rally Jennifer Zaldana of the A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition described the program as a violation of civil liberties. The threshold she and other advocates say for taking people's fingerprints - such as any traffic violation - is too low and leaves too much discretion in the hands of the investigating police officer. Immigration violations they point out is a civil matter not a criminal violation rising to the level of taking fingerprints. OMB Audio Jennifer Zaldana (5:31) Suffolk County including the city of Boston participates in the Secure Communities program. Boston served as a pilot city for the program in 2006. Governor Patrick's decision to join the 33 other states in the program is a turnaround from campaign promises he made to resist joining. Recently he indicated Massachusetts would not defy Obama administration calls for all states and municipalities to join Secure Communities by 2012. Veteran activist Sergio Reyes said organizations participating in the rally would deliver an "Important Message" to Governor Patrick on Monday. A poster of the message hanging on the front gate of the State House said in part "We believe the proposed 'Secure Communities' endangers the civil human rights and security of all immigrants and their families as well as the larger communities." Speaking at the rally on Saturday attended by about 75 people Dorathea Manuela of the Boston May Day Committee said Secure Communities or "S-Comm as we call it" is not a law requiring state adherence. OMB Audio Dorathea Manuela (6:10) According to ICE the agency "...is serious about responding to complaints or allegations of racial profiling as a result of Secure Communities. Individuals and organizations should report allegations of racial profiling due process violations or other violations of civil rights or civil liberties related to the use of this capability. All complaints should be filed with the DHS Office of Civil Rights and Civil Liberties." Web Resources http://www.answercoalition.org/boston/index.html http://www.bostonmayday.org/ http://www.immigrationpolicy.org/ http://www.ice.gov/ Photo set by Jason Pramas. Top photo by David Goodman. Bookmark/Search this post with: Delicious Digg StumbleUpon Reddit Newsvine Facebook Google Yahoo Technorati