Immigration Official Revises Enforcement Program Rules (Secure Communities)

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Source: The New York Times

Moving to repair an immigration enforcement program that has drawn rising opposition from state governors and local police chiefs, senior immigration officials on Friday announced steps they said would focus the program more closely on deporting immigrants convicted of serious crimes.

In unveiling the changes, John Morton, the head of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, said the deportation program would continue to expand as planned in order to be operating nationwide by 2013, despite criticism from many police chiefs and from the governors of Illinois, New York and Massachusetts, who sought to withdraw their states.

But in making course corrections to the program, known as Secure Communities, Mr. Morton acknowledged the groundswell of local resistance, including from Latino and immigrant groups, to an effort that is central to President Obama’s approach to controlling illegal immigration.

In a fix likely to have broad practical effect, Mr. Morton issued a memorandum that greatly expanded the authority of federal lawyers who handle cases in immigration courts to dismiss deportation proceedings against immigrants without serious criminal records.

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/18/us/18immig.html