
{"id":10931,"date":"2010-06-10T14:02:21","date_gmt":"2010-06-10T22:02:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.carrborocitizen.com\/main\/?p=10931"},"modified":"2010-06-10T14:05:56","modified_gmt":"2010-06-10T22:05:56","slug":"when-the-white-house-calls","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/2010\/06\/10\/when-the-white-house-calls\/","title":{"rendered":"When the White House calls"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_10932\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-10932\" style=\"width: 300px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.carrborocitizen.com\/main\/2010\/06\/10\/when-the-white-house-calls\/marty-rosenbluth\/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-10932\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.carrborocitizen.com\/main\/wp-content\/uploads\/2010\/06\/Marty-Rosenbluth-e1276207522434.jpg\" alt=\"\" title=\"Marty-Rosenbluth\" width=\"300\" height=\"199\" class=\"size-full wp-image-10932\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-10932\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">PHOTO BY ALEX MANESS. Marty Rosenbluth in his Southern Coalition for Social Justice office. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p><strong>By Taylor Sisk<br \/>\n<\/strong><em>Staff Writer<br \/>\n<\/em><br \/>\nWhen Marty Rosenbluth received a call summoning him to the White House, his first reaction was that it was a friend goofing around. <\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153I thought it was a gag,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Rosenbluth said, though he really should have known better. As a staff attorney with the Durham-based nonprofit Southern Coalition for Social Justice, Rosenbluth witnesses firsthand, every day, the consequences of our nation\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s immigration policy, specifically, the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s 287(g) and Secure Communities programs. <\/p>\n<p>Rosenbluth defends clients in deportation proceedings. The White House staff responsible for immigration policy wanted to pick his brain. <\/p>\n<p>It was a Thursday when the call came in. He was wanted in D.C. the following Monday for a meeting with White House staffers, representatives of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and other offices within the Department of Homeland Security and staff from the Department of Justice. <\/p>\n<p>Rosenbluth had been invited along with members of other immigration advocacy groups to talk about a report released in March by the Government Accounting Office that indicates that ICE\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s programs to identify and deport criminal aliens are failing \u00e2\u20ac\u201c that, in fact, individuals picked up for minor offenses are overwhelmingly those who are being sent away. ICE officials argue that the report is inaccurate, that with the implementation of a new memorandum of understanding its programs are now operating much more effectively.<\/p>\n<p>Rosenbluth disagrees. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153To put it in the most polite possible way,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d he said, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153we went up there to say that that ain\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t so.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p><strong>Word of mouth<br \/>\n<\/strong>In just a matter of months, Rosenbluth\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s work at the Southern Coalition for Social Justice has gone from being about 99 percent advocacy and 1 percent representation of clients in deportation proceedings to the inverse. Now 99 percent of his time is spent in such proceedings.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153The reason for that is that once word got out that we were representing clients in deportation proceedings pro bono, people came,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Rosenbluth said. There are very few, if any, options in North Carolina for pro bono representation for those facing deportation under 287(g) or Secure Communities, he said. <\/p>\n<p>The 287(g) program \u00e2\u20ac\u201c formally called the Agreements of Cooperation in Communities to Enhance Safety and Security (ICE ACCESS) \u00e2\u20ac\u201c provides money to local law-enforcement agencies to help identify illegal immigrants and process them for deportation. <\/p>\n<p>The Secure Communities program involves fingerprinting individuals picked up for offenses and checking them against FBI criminal history records and immigration records maintained by\u00c2\u00a0the Department of Homeland Security. According to a statement from ICE, if the fingerprints match those of someone in the DHS\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s system, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153the new automated process notifies ICE, enabling the agency to take appropriate action to ensure criminal aliens are not released back into communities. Top priority is given to individuals who pose a threat to public safety, such as those with prior convictions for major drug offenses, murder, rape, robbery and kidnapping.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p>But the overwhelming majority of cases the coalition takes on, Rosenbluth said, are people who were placed into deportation proceedings after being arrested for minor violations. <\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Shoplifting is probably the most serious offense we see on a regular basis,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Rosenbluth said. No driver\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s license, failure to yield, running a red light, expired tags or no registration are other typical offenses. <\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153We get a lot of people who get picked up for failure-to-appear violations because they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re scared to go to court because they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re afraid of being picked up due to 287(g),\u00e2\u20ac\u009d he said. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153So it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s kind of like a cycle.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d <\/p>\n<p>Lately, he said, they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve seen a lot of people who were picked up at their probation appointments. <\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153So they go to meet with their probation officer, they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re complying with the conditions of their parole, and ICE is waiting for them when they show up. <\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Why would you want to have an intentional policy of discouraging people from showing up for their probation appointments?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p>In addition to his work with the Southern Coalition for Social Justice, Rosenbluth is a member of the Orange County Human Relations Commission. Orange County does not participate in 287(g) but has been one of 21 North Carolina counties selected by the federal government for the Secure Communities program. A Secure Communities memorandum of understanding was signed at the state level and the counties were selected based on ICE\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s capacity (manpower and beds available in jails) to act on the information in that county.<\/p>\n<p>Rosenbluth said that Sheriff Pendergrass isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t doing anything any differently under Secure Communities than he was previously: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153All he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s doing is fingerprinting detainees. That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the only active thing the sheriff does.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d <\/p>\n<p>Almost every jail in the state has an automatic fingerprint identification system (AFIS). AFIS is connected to a central computer in Raleigh, which is in turn connected to ICE\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s database. <\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Once ICE has the ability to act on the information,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Rosenbluth said, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153the county is formally enrolled in the Secure Communities program.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153The only way Orange County could opt out of Secure Communities \u00e2\u20ac\u201c since it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Orange County to AFIS to Washington, D.C. \u00e2\u20ac\u201c is if they stopped fingerprinting.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t know what would have happened if [Pendergrass] had said no. I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t think it would have had any effect, because the computers are still connected. <\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153I guess Orange County could say, \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcWe refuse to participate and you can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t come into our jails to pick these people up.\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 But then you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re dealing with the right of the federal government to determine immigration policy.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d <\/p>\n<p>Pendergrass was unavailable for comment.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Commission seeks help<br \/>\n<\/strong>The Orange County Board of Commissioners went to the Human Relations Commission to ask for help in dealing with the ramifications of Secure Communities. <\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153We decided to try to put safeguards in place to prevent people from getting caught up in Secure Communities unless they were truly dangerous criminal aliens,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Rosenbluth said.<\/p>\n<p>The first of their recommendations was a demand for accountability. They wanted hard data from ICE regarding, for example, who was being put into deportation proceedings, where they were from and what they had been charged with.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153We figured human rights violations occur best under the shadow of darkness,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Rosenbluth said, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153so if we had accountability, it would be very embarrassing for ICE if [the data] shows that everyone who was picked up through ICE was picked up for jaywalking and none of them was a dangerous criminal.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p>The second recommendation was for a complaint procedure. The third was training for local law-enforcement officers to raise awareness about racial profiling. And the fourth was for a policy whereby the county commissioners would indicate to officers that they would prefer a consistent use of citations rather than arrests for minor offenses.<\/p>\n<p>The recommendations were presented to the commissioners in January; no response has yet been received.<\/p>\n<p>Commissioner Mike Nelson said the board asked the Human Relations Commission for input \u00e2\u20ac\u0153because we wanted their unbiased opinion about whether or not these programs were being used to violate the civil rights of residents. <\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t want to live in a community that engages in racial or ethnic profiling or one that harasses immigrants. I want our government, federal and local, to deal with immigration in a respectful and thoughtful manner.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p>Rosenbluth, Nelson said, has been \u00e2\u20ac\u0153a valuable citizen resource for us.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p><strong>A positive step<br \/>\n<\/strong>A particular concern Rosenbluth has about the Secure Communities program is that it presents what he sees as an \u00e2\u20ac\u0153accountability vacuum\u00e2\u20ac\u009d: <\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Local law enforcement can say, \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcWe\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re not engaged in racial profiling; we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re just picking people up for driving without a license or littering. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s ICE\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s decision to put them into deportation proceedings.\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 <\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153And ICE can say, \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcWe\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re not engaging in racial profiling. We\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re sitting in a computer command center in Chicago and this data is coming in. We\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re just acting based on the information we receive.\u00e2\u20ac\u2122\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p>Rosenbluth said that unless there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a clear policy directive from ICE not to put people who are picked up for minor offenses into deportation proceedings under 287(g) or Secure Communities, the overwhelming majority of people deported will be those with minor offenses.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll say this on the record, even though a lot of immigration advocates would hate me for saying it,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Rosenbluth said, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153but ICE officials in the field are doing their jobs in deporting people who are here illegally. They\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re not looking at it from whether or not this is the intention of the 287(g) policy. They\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re looking at it as, \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcLook; I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve got this guy in my custody. He\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s sitting here in my office; he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s basically admitted he\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s here illegally. You want me to let him go?\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 How is that possible?<\/p>\n<p>Rosenbluth doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t believe the ICE officials he met with in D.C. are being disingenuous about their perceptions of how things are playing out in the field: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I think they really don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t have a clue about how things actually work outside the Beltline.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p>ICE\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s new memorandum of understanding for law-enforcement agencies reads: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The agency is expected to pursue to completion all criminal charges that caused the alien to be taken into custody and over which the agency has jurisdiction.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153They\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re encouraging law enforcement to complete the state charges before someone passes into ICE custody, to make sure they are truly targeting criminal aliens,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Rosenbluth said. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Those are really pretty words if you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re sitting inside the Beltway. But in the field, they make no difference whatsoever, because that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not the way things happen.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d  <\/p>\n<p>Rosenbluth believes that ICE\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s own data shows that the 287(g) and Secure Communities programs are not working, that few criminal aliens are being deported.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not a question of what the law is, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s how it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s interpreted,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d he said. President Obama or Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano could say, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153\u00e2\u20ac\u02dcWe are not taking people into deportation proceedings anymore unless they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve been convicted of a felony,\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 and they could do that with the stroke of a pen. And that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s really what it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s going to take \u00e2\u20ac\u201c a very clear policy directive.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n<p>Since his White House visit, Rosenbluth has returned to D.C. for a meeting with ICE and immigrant advocacy groups, keeping the dialogue alive. <\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m really glad they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re listening,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d he said. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m really glad they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re hearing; I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m really glad that they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re trying to engage in the dialogue, and I think it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a really positive step.<\/p>\n<p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Is anything actually going to change? I guess that remains to be seen.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>When Marty Rosenbluth received a call summoning him to the White House, his first reaction was that it was a friend goofing around. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":10932,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,30],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10931","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-top-story"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10931","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10931"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10931\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10940,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10931\/revisions\/10940"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10932"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10931"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10931"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ibiblio.org\/carrborocitizen\/main\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10931"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}