{"id":942,"date":"2011-08-10T08:51:00","date_gmt":"2011-08-10T12:51:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www3.law.harvard.edu\/journals\/hlpr\/?p=942"},"modified":"2015-10-02T15:28:48","modified_gmt":"2015-10-02T15:28:48","slug":"feds-plan-to-secure-your-community-like-it-or-not","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/2011\/08\/10\/feds-plan-to-secure-your-community-like-it-or-not\/","title":{"rendered":"Feds Plan to \u201cSecure\u201d Your Community, Like it or Not"},"content":{"rendered":"

Billy Corriher<\/em><\/p>\n

A few Democratic governors have been publicly\u00a0refusing<\/a>\u00a0to participate in a federal program called \u201cSecure Communities,\u201d through which police share fingerprints with federal immigration authorities.\u00a0 On Friday, the Obama administration\u00a0announced<\/a>\u00a0that Secure Communities would continue expanding in these governors\u2019 states despite their objections.\u00a0\u00a0 A letter from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) said it was terminating all agreements with individual states, because an agreement \u201cis not required to activate or operate Secure Communities for any jurisdiction.\u201d<\/p>\n

The administration is effectively requiring local police to participate in immigration enforcement.<\/span>DHS points out that police already share fingerprints with the FBI, and its letter states that \u201cno agreement with the state is legally necessary\u201d for federal agencies to share such information.\u00a0 The now-terminated\u00a0agreement<\/a>between DHS and Illinois State Police allowed both parties to temporarily cease participation \u201cwhen resource constraints or competing priorities necessitate.\u201d\u00a0 Secure Communities was authorized under Congressional\u00a0directives\u00a0<\/a>for agencies to share information.\u00a0 Immigration and Customs Enforcement says that Secure Communities targets those who commit serious crimes.<\/p>\n

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo\u00a0refused<\/a>\u00a0to participate and questioned the program\u2019s effectiveness in deporting dangerous criminals. Cuomo also warned of\u00a0 \u201cconsequences for witnesses, victims of crime and law enforcement.\u201d\u00a0 Critics of Secure Communities cite concerns about racial profiling and rifts between immigrant communities and police.\u00a0 Even if the program imposes no additional obligations on local authorities, DHS is still asking police to assume the risks and problems that come with enforcing immigration laws.\u00a0 Some local authorities may not want to chip in because their constituencies have more urgent priorities for law enforcement.<\/p>\n

Secure Communities is not the first federal program to enlist police in enforcing federal regulations. The\u00a0Brady Act\u00a0<\/a>required state officers to perform background checks when firearms dealers sold handguns, but the Supreme Court threw out this provision of the Act, ruling that Congress cannot require state officers to enforce federal gun laws.\u00a0 Justice Scalia\u2019s\u00a0opinion\u00a0<\/a>said, \u201cThe Framers\u2019 experience under the Articles of Confederation had persuaded them that using the States as the instruments of federal governance was both ineffectual and provocative of federal-state conflict.\u201d\u00a0 The Court criticized the Act for infringing on state sovereignty and warned that the federal government\u2019s power would be \u201caugmented immeasurably\u201d if it could commandeer state and local police.\u00a0 The Court stated, \u201cBy forcing state governments to absorb the financial burden of implementing a federal regulatory program, Members of Congress can take credit for \u2018solving\u2019 problems without having to ask their constituents to pay for the solutions with higher federal taxes.\u201d\u00a0 But even if Congress paid the bills, the state would be accountable for the program\u2019s \u201cburdensomeness and . . . defects.\u201d<\/p>\n

Likewise, the federal government cannot require cash-strapped local authorities to enforce federal immigration law.\u00a0 The Constitution grants Congress the authority to regulate immigration, and the Supreme Court has\u00a0described\u00a0<\/a>this authority as essential to national sovereignty. Because the President must faithfully execute federal law, Obama should be accountable for any lack of immigration enforcement, just as Congress is responsible for any lack of reform.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Billy Corriher A few Democratic governors have been publicly\u00a0refusing\u00a0to participate in a federal program called \u201cSecure Communities,\u201d through which police […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-942","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/peZQka-fc","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/942","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=942"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/942\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=942"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=942"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=942"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}