Deportation policy expected to draw protests angry immigrants

Local leaders across the country were presented Tuesday with the results of a report that calls for the end of a controversial Department of Homeland Security program involving local officials in immigration enforcement.
The Immigration and Customs Enforcement program, known as Secure Communities, seeks to find unauthorized immigrants who have criminal records and deport them. According to ICE, the program is a "simple and common sense" way to carry out its agency's priorities, which include the removal of those who pose a threat to the public or are repeat immigration offenders.
But the report, written by a coalition of community organizations under the umbrella of the National Community Advisory Committee, found that a large number of immigrants being deported were not criminals and that it distracts from local police work.
In more than half a dozen cities Tuesday, groups of activists -- ranging from a handful to dozens -- presented the report to local leaders in an effort to get the federal government to drop the program.
Under the program, law enforcement agencies run the fingerprints of people they arrest through immigration databases, aiming to find illegal immigrants.
Critics have said it results in the deportations of immigrants who are in the United States illegally but have no criminal arrest records.
But federal officials have praised the program, arguing that it allows authorities to catch criminals who could fall through the cracks.
Critics of Secure Communities -- including several state governors -- have argued that is not the case.


Touted as protecting citizens from dangerous convicts, the program could split thousands more families, erode trust between immigrant communities and police and cost the president Latino votes if his administration pushes ahead with plans to make it mandatory nationwide, protesters warned Tuesday.


Department of Homeland Security officials are due to host what’s likely to be a heated town hall meeting in Chicago Wednesday about the program.


Just 26 of Illinois’ 102 counties currently participate., including include DuPage, where Procopio was arrested. But the Department of Homeland Security recently told Gov. Pat Quinn and the governors of two other states they can no longer opt out.


Angry immigrants are expected to pack Wednesday’s 6 p.m. meeting at the IBEW Hall, 600 W. Washington Blvd.


“We came to this country for the same reason as everyone else, to work,” said Procopio’s common-law wife, Sonia Perez, one of three dozen protesters at a news conference Tuesday in Pilsen.


“If they take him, I don’t know what I’ll do,” she said, sobbing.


As protesters chanted “Hey, hey, Obama, don’t take away my mama,” Susana Chinchilla, 24, said she is facing deportation after being picked up for running a red light in South Holland in November. Though she was not charged with a criminal offense, she said, police referred her case to Immigration.


Immigration officials emphasize that most immigrants detained under the Secure Communities program are accused of more serious crimes. Statistics from Cook County — which is not part of the program but where Immigration agents can manually check arrestees’ identities through state records — support that argument.


Just two of the 278 inmates held for Immigration at Cook County Jail face driving charges, while 29 are charged with murder, Sheriff’s spokesman Steve Patterson said.


If Cook County was forced to join the program, “I don’t know that we’ll see a big change,” he said.


Protest organizer Emma Lozano disagreed, saying the program would make it “much easier for Immigration to sweep people up.