Civil Rights Groups Weigh Lawsuit to Block Secure Communities Mandate

Civil rights groups are considering whether to sue the federal government after the Department of Homeland Security made participation mandatory in a controversial immigration enforcement program known as Secure Communities.

Secure Communities compels local law enforcement officers to share information about new arrests with federal immigration authorities, but its tendency to cause the deportations of immigrants who have no criminal record or have committed only minor offenses generated a backlash from law enforcement officials, immigrant communities and state lawmakers. Govs. Andrew Cuomo of New York, Patrick Quinn of Illinois and Deval Patrick of Massachusetts recently moved to suspend their states' participation in the program, amounting to rebukes from Democrats and allies of President Barack Obama.

In response, the Obama administration overrode the governors' objections by having the Department of Homeland Security terminate its Memoranda of Agreements, contracts containing a provision that allowed participating states to opt out of Secure Communities. On Monday, civil rights organizations said they were reviewing whether mandating a program advertised to states as voluntary was legal.

"[Immigration and Customs Enforcement] and the federal government don't get to rule by decree," B. Loewe, a spokesman for the National Day Laborer Organizing Network, told USA Today.

Enforcing the directive will be made easier by the fact that the databases sharing state arrest information with the federal government are already up and running, leading some critics to question whether the federal government misled states.

"Now that the states have activated Secure Communities and the federal government no longer needs their participation, they're just ignoring the states' concerns about how the policy is affecting their communities," said Jackie Esposito, director of immigration advocacy for the New York Immigration Coalition. "The question is how the Obama administration can move forward on a public policy that has faced criticism from such a wide array of groups across the country."

Obama has faced intensifying criticism for embracing a raft of aggressive immigration enforcement policies that have resulted in a record number of deportations, Secure Communities among them. He has promised to pursue comprehensive immigration reform, telling Latino supporters recently that Republicans are preventing a compromise, but his decision to double down on Secure Communities has provided immigrant advocates with another example of what they see as doublespeak.

"There's no question the administration is aggressively pursuing enforcement measures against immigrant communities despite the fact that the president as recently as a couple weeks ago publicly stated that he is committed to immigration reform," Esposito said. "Basically what's happening is the President is saying one thing and then DHS, under his leadership, is doing another."