The federal government’s Secure Communities program continues to be the
cause of much controversy in the United States. A group in Chicago has
now filed a class-action lawsuit against the Department of Homeland
Security, in which they claim that the Secure Communities program is
unconstitutional.
According to the lawsuit, the practice of asking local police to detain
immigrants in cases where there is no evidence that the immigrant has
participated in an illegal activity is unconstitutional. Of specific
concern is the part of Secure Communities that asks law enforcement
agencies to hold people in custody so that Immigration and Customs
Enforcement can check their immigration status and take over custody of
the person, if needed.
“What the lawsuit alleges is that in the vast majority of cases with
individuals who have detainers lodged against them, basically ICE says
to the locals, ‘We are instructing you to detain [an individual] after
[your] authority has expired because we have initiated an
investigation,'” said Mark Fleming, a litigation coordinator with the
National Immigrant Justice Center, the group that filed the class-action
lawsuit.
