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If the federal Secure Communities program spreads to New Haven, it would “destroy” the trust police have built up with the community, Mayor John DeStefano warned.
DeStefano joined other local politicians Tuesday at the Columbus Family Academy at 255 Blatchley Ave., in the heart of the city’s Latino community, to launch a new campaign to block the federal government’s effort to work with cities to deport people who’ve broken immigration law.
Under the Secure Communities program, launched in 2008, the FBI shares fingerprints of people arrested by local police with federal immigration officials, who check them against immigration records. If the person has violated immigration law, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) can ask a municipality for a “detainer,” to hold that person for up to 48 hours.
The program, originally designed to target “the worst of the worst” serious offenders, has led to the deportation of those who had committed no offense other than violating immigration law, according to a report by a federal task force assigned to review the program. The task force also reported widespread concern that the program was cutting away at trust between cops and immigrant communities.
At a time when New Haven is trying to revive community policing, Secure Communities “would destroy an essential element of trust” between cops and residents that the city has worked hard to cultivate, DeStefano said.
New Haven five years ago issued a general order calling on cops not to ask for immigration papers when responding to routine police calls. Secure Communities would reverse that trend and “make local police part of the immigration system,” DeStefano said.
DeStefano called on the state not to honor detainer orders from the federal government, except in cases where immigrants are on the FBI terrorist list or are perpetrators of a violent crime. In New Haven, he noted, Latinos have very low participation in violent crime. Most homicides involve disputes between black males.
Secure Communities has already been rolled out in Fairfield County.
DeStefano said he found out from ICE on Sept. 21 that it planned to spread the program to New Haven on Sept. 27. That date passed and “nothing happened.” Two days later, ICE told him it had suspended plans to implement the program. Plans to implement the program appear to be on hold, though the federal government plans to do so by 2013.
A group of New Haven aldermen has already come out in opposition to the program, saying it breeds fear and would prevent Latinos from reporting crimes and trusting cops.
More local politicians joined the campaign Tuesday.
The program “will make our local police officers the enemy of the people,” said state Rep. Pat Dillon.
“People are going to lose their trust in the police department,” said state Rep. Juan Candelaria.
State Rep. Roland Lemar called the program divisive and “grossly unjust.” Just as in the immigration raids of 2007, Lemar said, Latinos will be afraid to come to school, go to church, shop at local businesses and go to sports games.
Families will be torn apart by arbitrary deportation of working people, warned New Haven Alderman Migdalia Castro.
Police Lt. Luiz Casanova, head of patrol, said the department’s goal is keeping the streets safe — “not instilling fear in the community.”
“We don’t support illegal immigration,” but we have to recognize there is a large population of people who have broken immigration law, said said pastor Jose Champagne. Many of them pray in New Haven churches, work hard, and pay their taxes with no way to recoup benefits from the federal government. These people should be embraced as part of the community, not terrorized by the federal government, he said.
Reached after the press conference, Mike Lawlor, Gov. Dannel Malloy’s undersecretary for criminal justice policy and planning, said he has been talking to DeStefano and Hartford Mayor Pedro Segarra about their concerns about the program. He said the state agrees with DeStefano’s concerns and those raised by the Task Force on Secure Communities.
“If we get into situation where Latinos are being reluctant to cooperate with police as witnesses, as victims or as jurors, the system’s going to break down,” Lawlor said. Even if victims’ fingerprints won’t be sent to the feds, immigrants still worry about being deported if they interact with cops.
Lawlor said most of the decisions about how this plan will be implemented will be up to municipalities, who’ll be getting these federal detainers at local lockups. Towns and cities can chose to ignore some detainers where the person is not the perpetrator of a serious crime, but Lawlor said it would be reckless to refuse to issue any detainers, because the perpetrators might be wanted for serious federal crimes.
Lawlor said New Haven is in a unique position: It’s the only city in Connecticut where the state — not local police — runs the local lockup. In an extra twist, the lockup is run by the judicial marshals, who are governed not by the executive branch, but by the judicial branch.
O’Donovan Murphy, deputy director of judicial marshal services, said the judicial branch would not ignore requests from the federal government to detain a prisoner. If a detainer comes in for an arrestee, he said, “we’re going to adhere to the detainer.”
The Board of Aldermen is holding a public hearing on the Secure Communities program Wednesday at 6:15 p.m. at the Columbus Family Academy at 255 Blatchley Ave.