Tell President Obama: End S-COMM!

En Español aqui Action Alert Join us in raising our voices to urge President Obama and the Administration to heed the call from community members, advocates, faith leaders and elected officials around the country to put an end to the misnamed "Secure Communities" (S-comm) program. National Call-in Day to the White House TODAY: Monday, August 15th Suspend "Secure Communities." Stop the Detentions & Deportations. Restore our Rights. Investigate the Abuses. White House Comment Line: 202-456-1111 Line is open 9am-5pm Eastern | 8am-4pm Central | 6am-2pm Pacific Enough is enough! Our communities will not be silenced or appeased. DHS announced last Friday that they would continue to rollout S-comm nationally and rescinded all MOU's with states, effectively closing all doors for opting out of the deportation program. Most troubling DHS's ominous policy change completely ignored the growing and widespread opposition to immigration-police collaboration. This includes elected officials and members of Congress who called for an investigation into the program. Our message to ICE is clear: Cosmetic reforms and the creation of an Advisory Committee are not acceptable. DHS must stop S-comm and addres the mounting concerns raised around the country about the devastating impacts of S-comm on diverse communities. Now it's time we send a clear message to the White House about the misnamed "Secure Communities" program: S-comm separates families and destroys communities, violates our due process rights. DHS is using S-comm as a vehicle to meet the agency's deportation goal of 400,000 people per year, subjecting people to detention and deportation regardless of whether or not they committed any "crime," the degree of severity of legal infractions, how long ago any charges occurred, what kind of rehabilitation has taken place, or what ties they have to communities. S-comm compromises our communities' safety by driving a wedge between local police and the communities they are supposed to serve, adding to the already tenuous relationship. S-comm encourages racial profiling and indiscriminately funnels immigrants into an unjust and dysfunctional immigration detention and deportation system. . Join your neighbors, co-workers, community members and Call the White House Today! Dial 202-456-1111 and tell them: My name is ___________, and I'm calling from [name of your organization] in [city, state]. I am calling to urge the President to heed the call by communities, advocates, faith leaders, and elected officials across the country to suspend the "Secure Communities" program and stop the widespread deportation of our community members. Until there is a reasonable solution with a real path to legalization that includes all generations of immigrant community members to adjust their status, we urge you to suspend S-comm and keep our families together. We are deeply disturbed by the recent DHS announcement to rescind all MOA's with the states under the President's directive, only to continue with unabated and absolute disregard for widespread opposition to S-comm. In the spirit of democracy, I urge the President to suspend the Secure Communities program, stop the deportations, and investigate the widely-reported abuses that have been caused by policies fueling increased repression and racial profiling of immigrant communities. Thank you. . Let us know how it went! Please take a minute to share your experience.

'A slap in the face to immigrant communities'

DHS to Pursue 'Secure Communities' Deportation Plan

Dismisses Widespread Protest of Dragnet Program

[Oakland | Aug. 5, 2011] The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced today that they would be rescinding the Memoranda of Agreement with over 40 states that allow the sharing of fingerprint data between local police and DHS under the Secure Communities (S-Comm) program. The announcement came as a surprise to immigrant community organizations and advocates who have sought an end to S-Comm and appeared to dismiss formal protest from a number of states, including Illinois, Massachusetts, and New York, about participation in the program. California is poised to pass legislation to halt its participation in Secure Communities.

The DHS has said it would continue to move forward with the program without state agreements, apparently closing any door that states could “opt out” of the controversial program. Immigrant community groups view S-Comm as a “dragnet” to identify and channel undocumented immigrants into detention and deportation. S-Comm is slated for implementation in every county in the country by the end of 2013.

The executive director of the National Network for Immigrant and Regugee Rights (NNIRR), Catherine Tactaquin, called the announcement, “a slap in the face to immigrant community, groups, advocates, elected officials, and even members of the law enforcement community who have raised repeated concerns about the increase in racial profiling, prolonged detention, and traumatic deportations due to Secure Communities.”

She continued, “Clearly, DHS hopes to derail the nationwide protest against S-Comm and is intent on using it to help accelerate its strategy to deport as many immigrants as possible.”

The DHS announcement also came less than one week before the start of a series of local hearings in Dallas, Los Angeles, Chicago, North Virginia and Boston. The hearings, along with the establishment of a new Advisory Committee, were apparently created in response to complaints about the Secure Communities program.

NNIRR and some 200 other organizations recently criticized the Advisory Committee as insufficient to address the serious issues surrounding S-Comm, and have called for a halt to the program.

Recently released federal documents have also revealed that Secure Communities is a part of the FBI’s Next Generation Information System to fuel federal data-gathering on everyone in the country, further confirming that Secure Communities puts in great peril the rights and dignity of all people in the United States, regardless of their immigration status.