Jeh Johnson, DHS Head, Says ‘Secure Communities’ Immigration Law-Enforcement Program To Come Under Review

The head of the Department of Homeland Security said during an interview with PBS NewsHour on Thursday that a controversial immigration law-enforcement program that boosts cooperation between local police and ICE agents on locating and holding suspected immigration violators – even after they’ve been cleared by police -- will come under review. The Associated Press reports that DHS secretary Jeh Johnson, who at the behest of President Obama has been performing a review on how the department’s immigration enforcement can be changed to make it more “humane”, said that Secure Communities program needs a “fresh start”.

Since 2008, over 1,500 municipalities across the country have joined Secure Communities, under which local police send fingerprint information of recent arrestees to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), which can checks it against its own fingerprint records of past immigration violators. ICE officials can then send a “detainer” request to local police, asking them to keep an arrestee in custody up to 48 hours after they’re otherwise cleared for release so that ICE agents can arrive at the jail to carry out an interview. Immigrant advocates have long campaigned for its abolishment.

But the tipping point appears to have been the decision of a federal judge in Portland, who ruled in early April that a woman’s constitutional rights had been violated when county police kept her detained under the program. Sheriffs in several western states said afterward they would no longer honor “detainers” unless the arrestee had a record of serious crimes. On Thursday, Johnson suggested that he might soon recommend the program be changed to target individuals after they’re convicted instead of just arrested or booked. “In my judgment, Secure Communities should be an efficient way to work with state and local law enforcement to reach the removal priorities that we have, those who are convicted of something,” he said. “The program has become very controversial. And I told a group of sheriffs and chiefs that I met with a couple days ago that I thought we needed a fresh start.”