Secure Communities is a high government priority that concerns illegal immigrants currently residing in the United States. According to the ICE, the highest priority of any law enforcement agency is to protect the community that it serves. The ICE therefore prioritizes the removal of criminal aliens win the United States who are arrested for other crimes and pose a threat to the public safety.
According to the ICE website, Secure Communities is a way to carry out this priority. Essentially, the ICE uses an already-existing federal information0sharing partnership which hells to identify criminal aliens without imposing new requirements on state and local law enforcements. The arrested suspects are investigated to see if they have committed any previous crimes upon arrest, and can also be investigated to see if they are legal or illegal residents of the state where they were arrested. Immigrants who do not have the proper documentation can then be transferred over to the federal immigration authorities and taken into custody until they arrive at the deportation trial.
Normally, the government only carries out this method when dealing with violent offenders who do not have any documentation. They will put these offenders in deportation houses where they await their trial, and most likely will be sent back to their country of origin. While some believe that this is an effective way to remove illegal immigrants from the United States, others say that the DHS should reconsider and that the secure communities tactics do not support fairness of the law.
According to the ICE, more than 166,000 immigrants were convicted of crimes and removed from the United States after identification through secure communities up through August of 2012. Reports also show that about 61,000 of these immigrants were convicted of level one felonies such as sexual abuse of children, rape, or murder. Some immigrant advocates argue that secure communities is not fair and does not properly balance the deportation of serious offenders and those with minor offenses. Some immigrants who may have committed very small offenses can end up in custody in a deportation proceeding, and may be removed from their families as a result.
The Secure Communities starts when a person is taken into custody for a law violation and is fingerprinted. After the fingerprints are taken at the jail, the state and local authorities have the ability to electronically submit them to the FBI. This information is store in the FBI database so that the criminal can be located if he or she commits another offense. After the FBI checks the fingerprints to see if an offender already has a criminal record, the FBI then sends those fingerprints to the Department of Homeland Security.
This is where the second stage of secure communities comes in. The DHS determines if the fingerprints match a person who is undocumented and therefore subject to removal and deportation. If a person is eleigble fore removeal, then the FBI requiest that the local law enforcement detain the criminal for 24-hours so that a federal agent can be sent out to conduct an interview and device whether or not to seek the perosn's removal.
The ICE will evaluate a person's criminal history, immigration history, family ties, duration of stay in the United States, medical issues, and more to determine whether or not that individuals should be removed from the U.S. Oftentimes low-level criminals, re-entrants, and fugitives have the option to voluntary return to his or her home country. If you are dealing with a deportation issue due to the Secure Communities effort of the ICE, then you will want ot hire a local lawyer to assist you.