Thousands of immigrant rights advocates pack the National Mall during an immigration reform rally in Washington, Sunday, March 21, 2010.

Obama and Napolitano Use ICE to Reduce Hispanic Population 1,096 per Day

WASHINGTON (By Albor Ruiz, NY Daily News) April 1. 2010 ― President Obama has broken his promise to obtain Immigration Reform in his first year as President.

Just the opposite is true ― Obama and Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano have surpassed former President Bush's policy of reducing the Hispanic population in the United States using U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

Obama's repeated assurances ICE would focus on dangerous criminals and not on workers and families is not true.

"We are not going to deport our way to a controlled immigration system. The ultimate solution is Comprehensive Immigration Reform that ensures immigrants are legal, hiring is legal, and future immigration is legal," said Frank Sharry, executive director of the advocacy group America's Voice.

Sharry, of course, is right. Yet, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano and ICE Assistant Secretary John Morton, who claim ICE's priority is the deportation of dangerous criminal offenders, have instead intensified the raids, deportation and persecution of nannies, busboys and gardeners.

Last weekend, just a few days after an estimated 200,000 people marched in Washington for immigration reform, The Washington Post newspaper published internal ICE memos ― issued late last year and early this year ― that advocate immigration detention quotas.

The memos make clear "ICE's top priority is still meeting deportation quotas, not dealing with the worst of the worst offenders," America's Voice said in a written statement.

"Agents are told to go after easy targets ― non-criminal, undocumented workers ― to boost their numbers and earn good performance ratings."

This is the continuation of odious tactics implemented under George W. Bush. "The  agency went from focusing on criminals to focusing on quotas," Sharry said.

Despite Obama's promises to do away with those tactics, little has changed in the way ICE operates.
 

Last Monday, several immigration groups met with Morton and his senior staff to discuss the quota policy.

At the meeting, James Chaparro, ICE's Detention and Removal Operations director, who wrote the memos, apologized for his "error" and said it was motivated by a desire to meet a mandate of 33,400 detainees per day.

Morton said he had not cleared the memos and denied the use of quotas. Yet, he stated their goal was to deport at least 400,000 people this fiscal year.

ICE had deported 387,000 individuals last fiscal year, he explained, and it needed to increase this number, given this year's increased appropriations.

"ICE should not be arresting people just to fill detention beds," said Judy Rabinovitz, deputy director of the ACLU Immigrants' Rights Project, who attended the meeting.

The fact a high a level ICE official is ordering his subordinates to enforce policies that directly contradict the goals stated by the President, Napolitano and Morton is alarming.

It indicates, at least, Homeland Security leadership has been incapable of reining in the ICE cowboys and carry out its own priorities.

On Tuesday the Fair Immigration Reform Movement, a group of immigrant and Hispanic groups, called on Obama and Napolitano to fire Morton who, they charged, is either "incompetent or is systematically deceiving the President and the American public."