Subject: [SocialistWorker.org] When cops become immigration enforcers
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View original article here:
http://socialistworker.org/2012/06/19/when-cops-become-immigration-enforcers
Comment: Abraham Paulos
======== WHEN COPS BECOME IMMIGRATION ENFORCERS ==============================
June 19, 2012
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New York City is participating in the Department of Homeland Security's
Secure Communities program to target immigrants detained by police by
checking their fingerprints against immigration records. Gov. Andrew Cuomo,
under pressure from immigrant right groups, withdrew the state from the
program, but New York City reestablished its participation.
Abraham Paulos, director of the New York City group Families for Freedom [1],
which fights for immigrants with criminal records, explains the dire
consequences of Secure Communities, especially in combination with the New
York Police Department's "stop-and-frisk" policy.
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THE ACTIVATION of Secure Communities (S-Comm) last month basically put New
York City in the same category as Arizona, whose recent law SB 1070 is
regarded as the most draconian immigration law in the country. That is
because in New York City, S-Comm is combined with the New York Police
Department's (NYPD) policy of "stop-and-frisk." While NYC police officers
cannot ask us our immigration status, they don't have to; a quick trip to the
precinct can give them that information. Today, the police precincts are
virtual immigration checkpoints, driving us further into the shadows of a
police state.
The NYPD always submits our fingerprints to the Federal Bureau of
Investigation for routine criminal history checks. What's new is that under
S-Comm, the prints are shared with the Department of Homeland Security, so
that the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) can determine if we are
subject to deportation. ICE then transfers immigrants straight into the
unjust detention and deportation system.
As immigrants, we are treated as second-class citizens in our own criminal
proceedings. Because of S-Comm, we are routinely denied bail, jailed for
longer periods and disqualified from alternative release and treatment
programs. We then get funneled as commodities into an unjust detention and
deportation system that profits off our misery and separates us from our
families.
Had this program been implemented during my unlawful arrest in 2010, I
wouldn't be here today. I was picked up in Brooklyn on my way home from work
for a robbery I couldn't have committed, physically or logically. I was then
processed through the criminal justice system as if I was a product on a
manufacturing assembly line. I was fingerprinted at the precinct, booked at
Central Booking and then spit out at Rikers Island, all in a matter of days.
Under S-Comm, ICE would have immediately been alerted, regardless of the fact
the current charges were ultimately dismissed, and I would've been held
without bail. The reason is because ICE considers me a "criminal alien"
because I'm not a citizen and I have past convictions. It does not matter how
long an immigrant has lived here or how old the convictions may be.
My experience is not unusual. As a young Black male in New York City, my
story of incarceration is a dime a dozen. As an immigrant of color, this is
our new reality. We live in a racist society where immigrants and people of
color are criminalized, regardless of guilt or innocence. This
criminalization strips us of our right to be human beings, which then makes
it easier to stop, detain and deport us, as if we are animals. And if we are
considered animals, the police are on a safari, the jails are our cages--and
if we are exotic enough, we then get shipped to distant foreign lands.
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IN NEW York City, as immigrants, we are your neighbors, family and friends.
However, the Statue of Liberty is no longer a beacon of refuge for immigrants
today, but rather a cruel joke.
New York City is home to more than 8 million people, about 40 percent of whom
are foreign-born. Almost half of all Queens residents were not born in the
U.S. New York City has the largest population of Black immigrants, the
largest Asian Indian population in the Western hemisphere, and the highest
total Asian population of any U.S. city. Many of the New Yorkers who were
deported last year were part of families who have been established for
generations and provided the labor that has built this great city. Immigrants
have been coming to this city for centuries. We come displaced from our
countries of origin, only to find ourselves now getting harassed in our
neighborhoods by racist policies like stop-and-frisk, and then getting
permanently displaced by deportation programs like S-Comm. S-Comm, like
stop-and-frisk, is a threat to the ethnic and racial make-up of New York
City.
Secure Communities is a euphemism for ethnic and racial profiling. S-Comm
applies to immigrants, regardless how or why we were arrested, and whether or
not our arrests were based on profiling. ICE claims that Secure Communities
"reduces opportunities for racial or ethnic profiling because all people
booked into jails are fingerprinted." However, racial profiling happens
before we get arrested, not when we are getting fingerprinted. NYPD already
has a program called "stop-and-frisk" that relies on our appearances and
stereotypes to make decisions about whether to approach us. It is legalized
racial profiling.
Recent studies have demonstrated that S-Comm does, in fact, motivate the
police to profile, knowing that many of us will get thrown into deportation
as a result of our arrests, no matter what eventually happens in our criminal
cases. Contrary to ICE's propaganda about targeting violent criminals, their
own records show that 80 percent of people deported due to S-Comm have no
criminal records or were picked up for lower-level offenses. Contrary to the
NYPD's rhetoric about searching for guns and drugs, nine out of 10 people
stopped were totally innocent, meaning there was no conviction. Not a single
gun is retrieved in 99.9 percent of stops. Stop-and-frisk not only violates
our rights, but it strips us of our dignity in front of our family and
friends. We live in a police state--that is the only "threat to our society."
S-Comm with stop-and-frisk needs to be terminated to save the New York City
we know and love. Mayor Bloomberg recently commented on S-Comm, "If the
federal government has a law and you don't like it, change the law." We plan
to do just that. Whether that's crossing the Mojave, swimming the Rio Grande,
or fighting for justice to change the laws, one thing is clear: We will do
anything to keep our families together.
/First published at the Families for Freedom [2] website/.
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[1] http://www.familiesforfreedom.org/
[2] http://www.familiesforfreedom.org/news/s-comm-and-stop-and-frisk-threat-society-letter-ed-abraham-paulos
