The federal immigration-enforcement program called Secure Communities went live across Colorado this week — in a cobbled-together fashion and under a cloud of controversy over the potential for entangling domestic-violence victims in deportations.
Secure Communities was designed to be the quick, accurate, high-tech way to snag the worst criminal illegal immigrants by checking fingerprints of arrestees with federal immigration data.
But its official debut in all 64 Colorado counties Tuesday, after several years of planning and wrangling, happened with some underfunded counties still relying on snail-mailed, inked fingerprints rather than instantaneously sent, computerized, biometric prints.
It also happened just as the American Civil Liberties Union raised questions in one county about turning over information from those involved in domestic violence to federal immigration authorities. Under Secure Communities, everyone arrested, including those booked in connection with domestic violence, must be reported to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement at the time of arrest. Colorado law dictates that information on those involved in domestic violence be turned over to federal authorities at the time of conviction.
The ACLU accused Garfield County Sheriff Lou Vallario of violating the state law by immediately forwarding the names of immigrants involved in domestic-violence cases to ICE. The ACLU said several domestic-violence victims were placed in deportation proceedings because of Vallario’s actions.
Vallario called the ACLU allegations “slanderous,” and in a profanity-laced phone interview with The Denver Post, he said what he was doing was going to be the norm across Colorado this week when Secure Communities “goes live” in the entire state. The program had been operating in three pilot counties in the past year: Arapahoe, El Paso and Denver.
“We don’t think Secure Communities is the right way to do this,” said Alan Kaplan of the Colorado Immigrant Rights Coalition. “Domestic-violence victims are going to have to be careful.”
The long-controversial Secure Communities program and its potential to frighten domestic-violence victims have been linked in Colorado since former Gov. Bill Ritter appointed a committee two years ago to craft a memorandum of understanding with ICE.
At that time, ICE was presenting Secure Communities as a voluntary program, and Ritter opted in, despite some public opposition. He did so with the caveat that potential victims of domestic violence be excluded from the reporting.
A year later, ICE announced that Secure Communities was mandatory, not voluntary, and that memoranda such as Colorado’s were void.
Under mounting criticism of the program nationally, ICE announced it would use discretion to detain and deport only the most serious criminals. It would take steps to ensure that domestic-violence victims would not be afraid to report abuse even though such reporting sometimes leads to both parties initially being arrested because there are no witnesses or because both parties have injuries.
In Arapahoe County, one of Colorado’s pilot counties, all fingerprints are sent to ICE, which then determines who should be detained and deported.
El Paso County Sheriff’s Office spokeswoman Lari Sevene said there hasn’t been an issue with domestic-violence victims being swept up in the system because local officers are careful to determine before arrests are made whether there is a victim.
ICE spokesman Carl Rusnok said the agency will examine each case involving domestic violence so that victims are dealt with fairly.
“If the ‘victim’ is arrested by a local jurisdiction and comes to the attention of ICE, and has no criminal or immigration history, it is unlikely that he/she would be placed into removal proceedings. However, each case is treated individually,” Rusnok wrote in answer to an e-mailed question.
As this debate continues, some local jurisdictions in Colorado will be dealing with more pragmatic problems involving Secure Communities. As many as a third of the counties couldn’t afford the biometric equipment a year ago. Rusnok said he doesn’t know how many have acquired the equipment in the interim.
There also continues to be confusion about program mechanics.
“I’m not aware that we are alive with Secure Communities,” said Summit County Sheriff John Minor, whose office recently was able to get biometric equipment through a grant. “I don’t think the state database is up yet.”
Rusnok referred questions about the system in Colorado to the Colorado Bureau of Investigation. A CBI spokesman did not return calls.
Nancy Lofholm: 970-256-1957 or nlofholm@denverpost.com
This article has been corrected in this online archive. Lt. Lari Sevene is the public information officer for El Paso County Sheriff’s Office.
