Deportation Frustration

Obama talks reform as Homeland Security boots more and
more

By Chung-Wha Hong Thursday, March 31, 2011

Earlier this month, I was part of a small delegation of
immigration advocates and labor leaders who met with
Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano. During
the meeting, we reiterated our call for President Obama
to move forward on some immigration reform measures,
with or without Congress, and raised our concerns over
the administration's record on immigration to date.
These are concerns we have voiced repeatedly and with
increasing urgency over the past two years, including
in direct meetings with the president. Given the
president's oft-repeated support for immigration reform
and for bringing hardworking immigrants out of the
shadows, how can he explain his record?

Since the president took office, there have been a
record number of deportations -- nearly 800,000 in his
first two years. The annual number of deportations
under the Obama administration surpasses that of the
Bush administration. These deportations have largely
targeted the hardworking immigrants and family members
who the president has repeatedly stated should be
allowed the opportunity to legalize their status.

The Obama administration has also been marked by a
rapid expansion of programs that enlist local law
enforcement offices in immigration enforcement. This
has occurred despite widespread opposition by local law
agencies that say such programs undermine their ability
to protect public safety, compromise police-community
relations and impose significant costs on localities.
Such programs have also given rise to an unacceptable
number of racial profiling and civil rights violations.

The administration has put forth unfounded claims that
those programs -- 287G agreements and Secure
Communities, specifically -- target serious criminals
for deportation. But at least a quarter to a half of
those deported under such programs (depending on the
jurisdiction) have no criminal records whatsoever or
only minor infractions such as traffic violations.

And, while it's true that Congress has not delivered on
immigration reform, as we told Napolitano, there are a
number of things the president can do to begin to
repair the system.

He could, for instance, impose a moratorium on 287G and
Secure Communities programs, to allow time for an
independent assessment of their effectiveness, costs
and impact on public safety and immigrants' civil
rights and liberties.

Obama could exercise discretion and not deport
DREAM-eligible youth. The DREAM Act, passed by the
House but killed in the Senate in December, would have
offered a path to citizenship for young undocumented
people who came here as children, if they met certain
criteria.

The president has asserted that the bill's demise was
perhaps his "greatest disappointment" and that he
thinks "about those kids" and wants "to do right by
them." This recommendation offers him the opportunity
to do just that.

The frustration we expressed arose from the cumulative
impact of more than two years of enormous hardship,
pain and fear in immigrant communities. Over the last
two years, each day has seen another 1,100 people
deported and their families, friends and communities
torn apart.

In a stunning abdication of responsibility, the
secretary's response to all this was: It's Congress'
fault, and we are looking into designing oversight of
problematic programs like Secure Communities. As for
the DREAM kids, let them seek individual relief, one by
one, through private bills. What about the anger she
sees when she goes to speak to immigrant communities?
It's the fault of us advocates, because we're not
informing the communities about the great progress that
Homeland Security has made on immigration.

She offered another meeting, "at the secretary's
level," in 120 days.

I told her that the anger in immigrant communities is
because the administration has not done what it can to
provide relief. For example, it has granted far fewer
deferred actions for deportations of DREAM kids than
did the Bush administration.

It's one thing if we had come to her on day one of the
Obama administration. But we came to her on day 787,
and we can't spare another four months, or 132,000
deportations, for her to tell us what the
administration plans to do. We asked her to get back to
us in two weeks.

At a time of heated and divisive rhetoric, the
president's words of support for immigration reform
gave us hope. Words, after all, are meaningful.
Unfortunately, as we've learned, when they're not
backed up by action, they're also cheap.

Chung-Wha Hong is executive director of the New York
Immigration Coalition.


Juan J. Ramirez, Executive Assistant

The New York Immigration Coalition

137-139 West 25th Street, 12th Floor

New York, NY 10001

P: (212) 627-2227 x 228

F: (212) 627-9314

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