CQ Homeland Security | ICE Director Says ‘287(g)' Decision in Arizona was Apolitical, Crackdown on ‘Sanctuary' County Coming

When the Obama administration decided to terminate agreements that gave certain Arizona law enforcement agencies immigration enforcement powers, it faced accusations of political payback from Republican lawmakers, given that the announcement came the same day the Supreme Court struck down most of Arizona’s tough immigration law. But the administration’s top immigration enforcement official said Tuesday that the decision was made even before the ruling came.

“We were going to terminate them anyway in the next few months,” Immigration and Customs Enforcement head John Morton told the House Homeland Security Subcommittee on Border and Maritime Security.

The program is called “287(g),” after the section in a 1996 immigration law (PL 104-208) that created it, and Arizona was one of its biggest participants. ICE has two models for the agreements — one that allows state and local law enforcement agencies to look for illegal immigrants in their jails and prisons and a “task force” model that trains special teams of officers in immigration procedures and authorizes them to target “priority” illegal immigrants within their jurisdictions.

After the Supreme Court verdict, ICE dropped its task force agreements with all seven participating Arizona agencies, issuing a memo that they were “not useful in states that have adopted immigration enforcement laws.” The agency did, however, preserve agreements for seven jail-model agreements in the state.

During the hearing, Arizona Republican Ben Quayle said he couldn’t understand the timing of the decision on the 287(g) agreements “unless it was for political reasons by the administration,” and he noted that it applied only to Arizona, not other states that have passed their own immigration laws. Agencies in Alabama and Georgia, which have passed their own controversial statutes, also have task force agreements in place.

Morton responded that the administration has determined that the task force model is much less effective than the jail model, and formed a phase-out plan that included seeking a $17 million cut to the task force program in its fiscal 2013 budget request. Six of the seven agencies with task force agreements produced no cases that led to deportations over the past year, he said.

“They were leading to no removals and we viewed them as unproductive,” he said, adding later that his agency was not going to renew the agreements when they expired, but after the Supreme Court ruling, “We decided to do it all at once.”

‘Sanctuary’ County

Morton said he thinks the federal government should take action on another GOP sticking point: a 2011 law passed in Cook County, Ill., declaring that it will free illegal immigrants detained for felonies or misdemeanor, even if the federal government wants access to them for possible deportation proceedings.

“We have been exploring . . . our options under federal law with the Justice Department,” he said. One possible course of action would be for the government to deny Cook County’s reimbursement requests to the State Criminal Alien Assistance Program (SCAAP), through which the federal government reimburses jails for the cost of illegal immigrant detention, Morton said. Despite passing its ordinance, and challenging Secure Communities, a program that allows federal officials to match fingerprints taken during local police bookings with those on file in immigration databases to identify illegal immigrants and see if they meet DHS priorities for deportation, Cook County has continued to seek SCAAP money.

The SCAAP program is administered through the Justice Department. While CBP does not make decisions regarding SCAAP, Morton said his position is that federal officials can’t verify Cook County’s requests if they can’t access the detained illegal immigrants, and thus could deny them.

“I am very much opposed to their approach,” he said, adding that he believes it will add to crime in the area. “It does just not make sense . . . to release serious criminal offenders who should not be in the country in the first place.”

His comments drew bipartisan praise from the panel. “They’re not immune to federal law,” Chairwoman Candice S. Miller, R-Mich., said about Cook County. “We can’t just have one holdout in the country for this sort of thing.”

Ranking Democrat Henry Cuellar of Texas agreed. “They cannot say we don’t want you to do Secure Communities but at the same time ask for federal dollars for holding those prisoners,” he said.

Secure Communities in Alabama

Morton also arrived at the hearing ready to address a complaint GOP members have been making for months: that DHS has delayed fully deploying Secure Communities in Alabama.

Department officials have testified that the delay was due to a Justice Department challenge over Alabama’s immigration law. DHS held off expanding the program in the state pending guidance from federal appeals courts because parts of the law were held up in court and other parts were struck down, creating a confusing framework, officials said. Unlike states like Arizona and North Carolina, where Secure Communities was fully deployed before the state legislatures passed immigration laws, the program was only partially deployed before Alabama’s legislature acted.

Republicans, including Robert B. Aderholt of Alabama, chairman of the House Appropriations Homeland Security Subcommittee, have called the delays politically motivated.

Morton told the Homeland subcommittee Tuesday that the Supreme Court decision on the Arizona law should bring the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals to a place where it can issue clear guidance that would allow DHS to finish the work in Alabama.

“We can deploy in the remaining counties over the autumn,” Morton said.