Santa Clara County supervisors vote to opt out of Secure Communities program (San Jose Mercury News)

Santa Clara County supervisors vote to opt out of Secure Communities program

By Tracy Seipel
tseipel@mercurynews.com
Posted: 09/28/2010 06:24:06 PM PDT

Santa Clara County Supervisors on Tuesday unanimously voted to pursue opting out of a controversial federal program that enlists local law enforcement in the war on illegal immigrants.

Called "Secure Communities,'' the program gives federal officials access to the fingerprints of people arrested in local communities. Law-and-order advocates say it's led to the deportation of tens of thousands of lawbreakers; immigrant rights and civil liberties groups say it focuses too much on low-level criminals and doesn't protect against racial profiling.

Rolled out in 2008 across the United States, it was only implemented in Santa Clara County in May. Tuesday's vote, which elicited resounding applause by activists, sends "a message to our residents that we are not going to create an atmosphere of fear in our community,'' said Supervisor George Shirakawa, who first brought the issue to the board's attention.

But, he said, the board's vote is "not the end of the issue... there is more work to be done.''

A seven-page memo released last month by the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) said local jurisdictions can choose not to participate in the program if they notify their state identification bureau -- in this case, the California Department of Justice -- and federal officials in writing.

Santa Clara County Deputy County Counsel Anjali Bhargava said her office now will do just that.

The state attorney general's office had previously denied a request from San Francisco officials to opt out of the program. But after the ICE memo last month, San Francisco set up a meeting with state and federal officials to re-examine the matter.

That meeting had been scheduled for Oct. 13. But on Tuesday, San Francisco Sheriff Michael Hennessey's office asked both ICE and the state Department of Justice to delay talks until after the November election.

"Secure Communities has become a highly charged issue in the Nov. 2 statewide elections,'' said Eileen Hirst, Hennessey's chief of staff.

Attorney General Jerry Brown, who heads the state Justice Department, is the Democratic nominee for governor, but Hirst said the sheriff's office was not pressured to delay the meeting.

Brown's office has repeatedly declined to comment on the matter. But Santa Clara County's Bhargavi said that in a recent phone call, the Attorney General's office said the state "will not impose an obligation on the county to participate."

However, Bhargavi added, only the federal Department of Homeland Security -- which oversees ICE -- can "de-activiate a jurisdiction" from the program, according to Brown's office.

ICE spokeswoman Virginia Kice said her agency is willing to meet with Santa Clara County officials. But she also notes that in the four months since the program's activation here, ICE has taken custody of 339 deportable aliens, nearly 75 percent of whom are convicted criminals. That includes 98 people with prior convictions for serious or violent offenses, whom Kice said "might have been released to the streets without this important information-sharing capability.''

Santa Clara County leaders have said they never agreed to participate in the program but inadvertently play a role in it whenever someone is arrested and taken to the county jail. At that point, his or her fingerprints are sent to an identification system that is ultimately downloaded to the state Department of Justice.

That agency, in turn, has a practice of sharing information with the federal government for law enforcement purposes. The county doesn't object to that, but it does protest allowing ICE officials to access the information to verify immigration status.