#3: State and Local Immigration Enforcement Works Right now, across the country, 287(g) programs are making meaningful progress in tackling the immigration problem. Under 287(g) auspices, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) trains state and local law enforcement to act like ICE agents. In Davidson County, TN, it helped law enforcement get 90 gang leaders off the streets. And across the nation, criminal aliens are not only taken off the streets through 287(g), but also taken out of the country. In this way, this program is making communities safer by helping …
DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano is tentatively scheduled to testify before the United States Senate Judiciary Committee about DHS immigration enforcement policies on May 6, 2009. Given Secretary Napolitano’s novel interpretations of federal law, the Heritage Foundation will be posting a series of questions (and suggested answers) for the Secretary. Questions for Napolitano: # 1, The Future of State and Local Immigration Enforcement In numerous public statements over the last four months, Obama Administration officials have made comments that appear to question the importance of and use of state and local …
Last week the Government Accountability Offices (GAO) released a report calling for better oversight of the Immigrations and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) 287(g) state and local law enforcement training program. We agree that the program could use additional oversight, but the GAO report also recommends a fundamental rethinking of the program that defeats its original purpose. Heritage analysts Jena Baker McNeill and Diem Nguyen explain: The report proposes that the program’s objective should be to only address serious criminal activity and that officers who check the immigration status of those committing …
Supporters of “comprehensive” immigration reform often purport the zero sum argument that there must be permanent legalization or the forced deportation of all 12 million illegal immigrants. However, a new pilot program by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is testing another option. The pilot of Operation Scheduled Departure allows non-criminal fugitive illegal immigrants, in other words those illegal immigrants who have received deportation orders but have not complied and have no criminal records, to turn themselves in at ICE offices in Charlotte, Chicago, Santa Ana, Phoenix and San Diego. …
