April, 06 2012, 02:12pm EDT
ACLU Reacts to Office of Inspector General's Reports on Secure Communities Program
WASHINGTON
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Office of the Inspector-General (OIG) today released two reports regarding the Secure Communities federal immigration enforcement program.
"Today's reports do nothing to address the well-founded criticisms of S-Comm that have been coming from all corners of the country for the past four years," said Kate Desormeau, staff attorney with the ACLU Immigrants' Rights Project. "The reports ignore the reality that this misguided program has led to unwarranted detention, arrests and deportations of victims, witnesses and other innocent people, including U.S. citizens. If the Department of Homeland Security is serious about resolving the widespread civil rights abuses this flawed program is causing and the mistrust it is creating in our communities, it would end the program now."
The reports indicate that since 2008, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has spent about $750 million on S-Comm. The reports also acknowledge that since the program's implementation began, S-Comm "continues to face opposition, criticism, and resistance in some locations."
S-Comm is run by ICE, a part of DHS. Today's reports come following a task force report on the program issued in September, which revealed many problems with the program, namely that it has led to the deportation of thousands of immigrants with no criminal records and undermines community policing efforts. The ACLU has long been critical of S-Comm, arguing that it encourages racial profiling, undermines equal protection and due process rights and threatens public safety.
To read more about S-Comm, go to: www.aclu.org/blog/tag/secure-communities
The American Civil Liberties Union was founded in 1920 and is our nation's guardian of liberty. The ACLU works in the courts, legislatures and communities to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties guaranteed to all people in this country by the Constitution and laws of the United States.
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United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres stressed the "urgent need" for Israel to "de-escalate violence on all fronts."
Dec 12, 2024
United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres said Thursday that he is "deeply concerned" by Israel's "recent and extensive violations of Syria's sovereignty and territorial integrity," including a ground invasion and airstrikes carried out by the Israel Defense Forces in the war-torn Mideastern nation.
Guterres "is particularly concerned over the hundreds of Israeli airstrikes on several locations in Syria" and has stressed the "urgent need to de-escalate violence on all fronts throughout the country," said U.N. spokesperson Stephane Dujarric.
Israel claims its invasion and bombardment of Syria—which come as the United States and Turkey have also violated Syrian sovereignty with air and ground attacks—are meant to create a security buffer along the countries' shared border in the wake of last week's fall of former Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and amid the IDF's ongoing assault on Gaza, which has killed or wounded more than 162,000 Palestinians and is the subject of an International Court of Justice genocide case.
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"Killing people is not the way we're going to reform our healthcare system," he said. "The way we're going to reform our healthcare system is having people come together."
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Addressing the assassination of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson and conversations it has sparked about the country's for-profit system, longtime Medicare for All advocate Sen. Bernie Sanders on Wednesday condemned the murder and stressed that getting to universal coverage will require a movement challenging corporate money in politics.
"Look, when we talk about the healthcare crisis, in my view, and I think the view of a majority of Americans, the current system is broken, it is dysfunctional, it is cruel, and it is wildly inefficient—far too expensive," said Sanders (I-Vt.), whose position is backed up by various polls.
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Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.)—a co-sponsor of Sanders' Medicare for All Act—similarly toldHuffPost in a Tuesday interview, "The visceral response from people across this country who feel cheated, ripped off, and threatened by the vile practices of their insurance companies should be a warning to everyone in the healthcare system."
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Reporters Without Borders' (RSF) 2024 roundup, which was published Thursday, found that at least 54 journalists were killed on the job or in connection with their work this year, and 18 of them were killed by Israeli armed forces (16 in Palestine, and two in Lebanon).
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