The Obama administration has issued new guidelines for jurisdictions participating in Immigration and Customs Enforcement's 287(g) program. Through that initiative, participating police agencies may check the residency status of anyone charged with an offense of the law. If the offender is found to be in the country illegally, deportation proceedings can be initiated.What's in these new guidelines is a bit fuzzy at this point. On one hand, you have Rep. Roscoe Bartlett and 54 other members of Congress signing a letter to President Barack Obama arguing that local jurisdictions participating in 287(g) should have broad discretion in enforcing immigration laws.
On the other hand, you have Frederick County Sheriff Chuck Jenkins saying in a news release last Friday that the new guidelines will have "no impact" on how his office is administering the program.
So the mystery at this point involves the exact language of the new guidelines. According to the story in Saturday's edition of The Frederick News-Post, the new document does not bar "minor" offenses such as traffic violations from the program. It does, however, place higher priority on violent offenders.
If this is so, how does that differ from the existing program? If it merely suggests that police focus on violent offenses as opposed to traffic violations, but does not make traffic violation off-limits, what's new about that? Jenkins' characterization of it leads us to believe that it will not change how he conducts 287(g) in Frederick County -- that deputies will continue to check the residency status of anyone given a traffic citation.
Ever since the sheriff's office became involved in the ICE program, profiling has been the big issue. Some worried that 287(g) could degenerate into officers stopping Hispanic-appearing people on the street and asking them for identification and proof of legal residency -- or that police would be hyper-attuned to Hispanic-looking drivers, seeing any excuse to pull them over, issue a citation, and then check their immigration status.
To our knowledge, that hasn't been the case. Still, many drivers ticketed for a traffic offense have later been identified as illegal immigrants. Bartlett argues that violations such as speeding, running red lights, DUI and driving while suspended are serious offenses. We agree. And for anyone ticketed or arrested for such an offense, including illegal immigrants, let the chips fall where they may.
Homeland Security officials came to Frederick last week to personally deliver the revised, signed agreement between ICE and the sheriff's office. We think this document should be open and available to the public because it defines important local public policy. Alas, that's not the case, as The Frederick News-Post has had to file a Public Information Act request to obtain a copy of it.
It will be interesting to see exactly how the new guidelines and language differ from the old ones. But Jenkins' "no impact" comment leads us to believe that the new version does not rule out identifying illegal immigrants ticketed for traffic violations.
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