the Immigration Lawyer NVC blog

Massachusetts is the third state to pull out of the program, called Secure Communities, after Gov. Pat Quinn canceled it in Illinois in May and Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo suspended New York’s participation last week. All three are Democrats from states with large immigrant populations, and they are close allies of President Obama, including on immigration issues.

The governors’ actions seem to set up a confrontation with immigration authorities, who maintain that the program is mandatory.

In a June 3 letter, the Massachusetts secretary of public safety and security, Mary Elizabeth Heffernan, said Mr. Patrick had concluded that he should not sign any agreement to join the program because it was not accomplishing its goal of deporting immigrants who were convicted of serious crimes. Ms. Heffernan also wrote that state law enforcement officials feared that the program was “overly broad and may deter the reporting of criminal activity.”

She rebuked Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the federal agency that runs the program, for sending “conflicting messages” about how it would operate in Massachusetts and whether states were required to join.

“We are reluctant to participate if the program is mandatory and unwilling to participate if it is voluntary,” she wrote.

Officials from the enforcement agency have acknowledged that they did a poor job of explaining the program to state officials, at one point suggesting that it might be voluntary.

A Department of Homeland Security official said that the authorities would continue to expand the Secure Communities program, including in Massachusetts, because it was required by a federal law passed after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks that addresses the sharing of information between the F.B.I. and immigration authorities.

“We are not going to stop this program because of the governors,” said the official, who spoke anonymously in order to provide insight into a policy decision. “It is a program that is mandated by law that has the support of the administration and the Congress.”

In the most recent budget, he said, Congress cut many Homeland Security Department programs but added to the budget sought for Secure Communities.

Under the program, everyone who is booked into jail, immigrants and citizens, would have their fingerprints checked against F.B.I. criminal databases, as is routine, and also against Department of Homeland Security databases of immigration violations.

Secure Communities, initiated in 2008 under the administration of President George W. Bush, has expanded rapidly under the Obama administration, and is operating in 1,331 local jurisdictions in 42 states, according to official figures. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano has said the program must be operating nationwide by 2013.

In Massachusetts, Mr. Patrick said last December that he was inclined to join the program, in part because he believed the state had no choice. In a half-dozen sometimes stormy public meetings across the state, immigrant organizations spoke out against the program, saying it was sweeping up illegal immigrant workers who had not committed crimes and had family members who were in the United States legally.

Supporters of the program also turned out, making it clear that immigration could become a sharply divisive issue even in Massachusetts, with its deep tradition of immigration.

Separate from state authorities, Boston started a Secure Communities pilot program in 2008. Official figures from Boston showed that 54 percent of the immigrants deported under the program had no criminal convictions, only civil immigration violations. Only about one in four deportees under the program had been convicted of a serious crime, according to the figures.

Massachusetts officials said that Mr. Patrick was eager to avoid any clash with Mr. Obama over immigration, but would press him to try to pass an overhaul of immigration laws that would include legal status for illegal immigrants.

“The governor believes, as the president does, in the need for comprehensive immigration reform at the federal level,” said Alex Goldstein, Mr. Patrick’s spokesman.

Eva Millona, executive director of the Massachusetts Immigrant and Refugee Advocacy Coalition, said, “I have to credit Governor Patrick for focusing on the problems and not the politics of this program.”

Article based on: NYTimes.com