The Progressive

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A project of Common Dreams

For Immediate Release
Contact:

Jen Nessel, CCR, 212 614 6449, jnessel@ccrjustice.org
David Lerner, Riptide Communications, 212 260 5000, dlerner@riptideonline.com

Rights Groups Hold Teleconference to Release Documents from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Agency FOIA Lawsuit

New Records Reveal Federal Government Has Been Dishonest with State and Local Police About its “Secure Communities” Program

WASHINGTON

Immigration rights advocates involved in a lawsuit seeking the
disclosure of government records relating to the so-called "Secure
Communities" (S-Comm) program of the U.S. Immigration and Customs
Enforcement (ICE) Agency will hold a press teleconference Tuesday,
August 10 at 1pm (Eastern Standard Time), having just received important
internal ICE documents via a FOIA complaint submitted this past April.
In addition to making these newly released documents public and
providing an overview of the case, the advocates will explain the
relevance of these most recent findings, which reveal a pattern of
dishonesty regarding the true scope and mission of ICE's S-Comm program.

S-Comm, now operating in at least 494 jurisdictions in 27 states,
further involves state and local entities in the enforcement of federal
immigration law. Although ICE presents S-Comm as an innocuous
information sharing program, it functions as a dragnet for funneling
people into the mismanaged ICE detention and removal system, potentially
creating mini-Arizonas in hundreds of jurisdictions, according to
advocates. Particularly problematic S-Comm's mechanism which
automatically runs fingerprints through immigration databases for all
people arrested and targets them for detention and deportation even if
their criminal charges are minor, eventually dismissed, or the result of
an unlawful arrest. In addition, S-Comm coerces local police
departments into the job of federal immigration enforcement at
significant cost to their core policing mission and without full and
truthful information as to the scope and impact of the program.

What: Press Teleconference on ICE documents from FOIA complaint

Who: Sarahi Uribe, National Day Laborer's Organizers Network

Bridget Kessler, Immigration Justice Clinic of the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law

Sunita Patel, the Center for Constitutional Rights

Local Public Official and Local Community Organizer, TBD

When: 1pm EST, Tuesday, August 10

How: Journalists: 800 868 1837; participant code is 868895#

Visit CCR's Secure Communities FOIA case page
for the text of the April 27th FOIA Complaint. All other relevant
documents will also be available on that page at the beginning of the
call.

The Center for Constitutional Rights is dedicated to advancing and protecting the rights guaranteed by the United States Constitution and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. CCR is committed to the creative use of law as a positive force for social change.

(212) 614-6464