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RPatrick says he won't sign Secure Communities program
The refusal sets up a showdown with the federal government over a key initiative on illegal immigration, and follows refusals by states such as Illinois and New York to sign on to the program.
Patrick said he had long felt the program was bad public policy. He said the state had previously been given conflicting reports on whether it was mandatory, learning only recently that it was voluntary. Aides from Public Safety and Safety Secretary Mary Beth Heffernan's office said the Department of Homeland Security confirmed during a meeting two weeks ago that the state could opt out.
Patrick said the program, as carried out, sweeps up too many people who are not criminals and that feedback from immigration activists, police chiefs, and local mayors persuaded him that it would ultimately discourage people from reporting crimes.
"We run a serious risk of ethnic profiling and frankly fracturing incredibly important relationships in communities that are important for law enforcement," he said.
Patrick also said his complaints about the program were not his alone.
"I don't think that the Obama administration is satisfied that the implementation of this program has been very effective," he said.
In some ways, the practical implication of the decision is small. The state will continue to send fingerprints from people arrested by local and state police departments to the FBI, said Curtis Wood, the undersecretary of forensic science and technology for the Executive Office of Public Safety and Security.
Wood said the FBI can still share those fingerprints with ICE or the Department of Homeland Security.
But Patrick's refusal to sign on to the program will signal his preference to federal officials. State officials directed questions about how that statement would be interpreted to federal agencies.
Heffernan wrote in a letter dated Friday to the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement that "The Governor and I are dubious of the Commonwealth taking on the role of immigration enforcement. We are even more skeptical of the impact that Secure Communities could have on the residents of the Commonwealth."
She said the Patrick administration was concerned that Secure Communities wasn't meeting its main goals -- deporting hard-core criminals. She said that more than half of those deported under Boston's program were non-criminals and only 1 in 4 were hard-core criminals, and accused ICE of sending mixed messages about the program.
In December, the Patrick administration said it would sign up with the federal program, because it snagged violent criminals for deportation, something the administration still supports, and because the program would be mandatory nationwide by 2013. The Patrick administration noted Boston's willing participation in the program. The city had piloted it for the federal government since 2006 and continued when it expanded in 2008.
But advocates for immigrants protested, saying that ICE's own statistics showed that more than half of those detained by the program were non-criminals.
The protests prompted the Patrick administration to hold a series of public meetings this year to address concerns about the program, eliciting sharply different views.
Immigrant advocates said illegal immigrants would be afraid to call the police for help, while Tea Party activists urged the governor to sign on to Secure Communities to sweep criminals out of the country.
Advocates for immigrants today hailed the news that Patrick would not sign.
Centro Presente, a Somerville-based statewide advocacy group that was among the first to protest the program, urged Boston to drop out as well.
We are obviously very pleased that Governor Patrick has decided to not enter Massachusetts into the Secure Communities Program. "He campaigned as a friend of the immigrant community and with this act he has walked that talk," said executive director Patricia Montes, adding, "We hope that Mayor Menino will reconsider Boston's participation in this program in light of its poor performance as reflected in ICE's own statistics."
Christen Varley, president of the Greater Boston Tea Party, expressed outrage today at the Patrick administration's announcement, saying it put all Massachusetts residents at risk, including illegal immigrants. She pointed to the case of an illegal Ecuadoran immigrant, who had been arrested and released before he allegedly went on to kill a Brockton woman, also here illegally, and her 2-year-old son in February.
She said her group would continue to lobby hard for the program.
"The reality is the people of America do want this because they are tired of paying the bill, they are tired of being victimized," she said, adding, "We have concrete examples of where horrific crimes could have been prevented."
The Secure Communities program is now operating in 42 states, according to ICE. Since it began in October 2008 through April 30, 2011, ICE has deported more than 77,000 criminals; less than half were convicted of aggravated felonies such as murder.
Published June 6, 2011 by The Boston Globe.