The decision by federal immigration officials to void agreements with some 40 local and state governments over a fingerprint-sharing program has set off an unnecessary furor.
The brouhaha over Secure Communities only underscores fundamental misunderstandings about this key immigration-enforcement program.
It is absolutely within the purview of the federal government to check immigration status of people whose fingerprints have been sent to the FBI for criminal background checks.
It would be a dereliction of duty for them not to do so.
There is room for argument, we think, about how federal immigration-enforcement officials should prioritize deportations based on what they find. However, the mere act of checking status should not raise an eyebrow.
We believe Immigration and Customs Enforcement would best serve the country by focusing its limited resources on those with the worst criminal backgrounds.
There have been legitimate criticisms about inconsistent deportation policies and a lack of flexibility in looking at the totality of circumstances in individual cases.
However, recent Department of Homeland Security changes that allow prosecutors more discretion in deciding whether to pursue cases could remedy those concerns.
At its heart, Secure Communities is an information-sharing program, and it works like this: Local law enforcement officers arrest someone and bring him to jail to be fingerprinted.
The locals, in seeking a criminal background check on the arrestee, send off fingerprints to be run against a federal database so the full criminal history of the arrested person can be ascertained.
The next step is crucial. The FBI gets the fingerprints and shares them with DHS, which runs an immigration check.
That is the key nexus within Secure Communities, and it requires no acquiescence from local authorities. Why DHS chose to engage in agreements with local and state authorities to begin with remains an unanswered question.
But the cancellation of those memorandums of agreement, while odd, doesn’t change the fact that this was never a voluntary program.
Perhaps it’s a political move, designed to alleviate pressure on governors and local officials who are being lobbied heavily by immigration advocates to refuse to sign such agreements.
In any case, we hope the controversy doesn’t slow the pace of implementation. Secure Communities is good policy, and a necessary precursor to bringing around public opinion on comprehensive immigration reform.
Such reform, including a path to citizenship for non-citizens, can only be achieved when Americans are reasonably assured that this country’s borders are secure and criminal non-citizens who have no business being here are deported.
