San Francisco Sheriff Michael Hennessey has announced that he will release illegal immigrants who are believed to have committed low-level crimes instead of jailing them and turning them over to federal authorities.<\/p>\n
Hennessey declared his distaste for the Secure Communities program run by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement in an op-ed piece in the San Francisco Chronicle last month. Local law enforcement, which use the Secure Communities program, send the fingerprints of arrested criminal suspects to ICE to check them against federal immigration databases. A match can result in commencement of removal proceedings.<\/p>\n
Critics have long argued that Secure Communities actually undermines public safety, and that immigrants will stop reporting crimes they see because they are afraid of deportation.<\/p>\n
\u201cICE\u2019s Secure Communities program puts local police in a bind. How can local police provide a \u2018secure community\u2019 if various members of that community will not report crimes nor offer to testify out of fear (more…)<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" San Francisco Sheriff Michael Hennessey has announced that he will release illegal immigrants who are believed to have committed low-level crimes instead of jailing them and turning them over to federal authorities. Hennessey declared his distaste for the Secure Communities…<\/span><\/p>\n