End 287(g) Programs

Secretary Napolitano

I am writing out of concern about the recent expansion of the highly problematic 287(g) program that deputizes state and local law enforcement to enforce federal civil immigration laws. The program has led to racial profiling, has damaged community policing and community security, and has left crime victims like battered women afraid to ask for police protection.

This past year has seen a flurry of reports that have pointed to the failures of the 287(g) program. Reports from organizations as disparate as the ACLU, Justice Strategies, the Goldwater Institute and the GAO have all found that the program suffered from an almost complete lack of oversight by DHS, a lack of consistent and identifiable goals, and resulted in unlawful racial profiling. In addition, advocates of fiscal responsibility and law enforcement agencies have found the program to be costly to the localities implementing it and a hindrance to the ability of law enforcement to accomplish their primary goal, which is to protect the safety and security of the communities they police.

Evidence has also emerged about the way in which some law enforcement agencies are interpreting their authority under the 287(g) program. People have been detained on what appear to be pre-textual arrests for such attenuated violations as fishing without a license, careless driving, or missing a truancy hearing. The impact of arrests on such minor offenses can be very serious: a woman was detained in her ninth month of pregnancy, shackled while in labor and separated from her new born child; another woman was forced to leave her children in a car by the side of the highway for hours; and families have been separated by the detention and deportation of individuals targeted for minor offenses. These actions should not be dismissed as unfortunate but rare occurrences as they are symptomatic of a failed enforcement strategy. This failed strategy destroys a community's trust in the police and diverts law enforcement resources away from their primary mission of preventing or solving serious crimes. One participating agency is already under investigation by the Department of Justice, and several other localities are being sued for racially profiling in carrying out their expanded duties.

Faced with mounting evidence of a failed program, DHS took the extraordinary step of rewriting the MOA that DHS signs with agencies participating in the 287(g) program, including some cosmetic changes and some significant omissions, and then expanded the program to eleven more agencies. To add more agencies to a program that has at best shown itself to be a dismal failure and, at worst, proven to be a program that encourages racial profiling and destroys community security, before having evidence that the old problems can be sufficiently addressed is unwise. In re-drafting the standard MOA, DHS has not improved the program; in fact it has taken out some critical protections against human rights abuses, including local steering committees.

Madame Secretary, the decisions being made by your agency and this administration regarding the co-opting of state and local law enforcement agencies to push ineffective and inhumane "enforcement only" immigration policies prolongs a failed experiment and increases the human rights violations suffered by communities across the country. I urge you to reverse course and stop using state and local law enforcement agencies to do DHS' dirty work. Revoke all existing 287(g) MOAs and return the enforcement of civil immigration law to the purview of the federal government. I look forward to hearing from you on this important matter.

Sincerely,

Your name and address here