US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, has announced that it will not renew programs like 287(g) and other agreements with the local and state law enforcement authorities, that will expire on December 31, 2012. According to this announcement, ICE will get rid of the program that allows the law enforcement officials to enforce immigration laws. At the same time, ICE has said that the programs like Secure Communities, are helpful in identifying criminals and priority cases and that this program allows the federal officials to decide on the appropriate immigration laws.
The 287(g) program, now allows the local and the state police to arrest immigrants who entered into America illegally and undocumented immigrants who are considered to be priority cases. Priority cases are the criminals who violate the US immigration laws, fugitives and undocumented immigrants, who are national security threats. Since 1996, 1,300 trained and certified officers, were allowed to enforce immigration laws, under the 287(g) program. This program will expire on 31st December and it will not be renewed.
ICE also announced that undocumented immigrants who are convicted of petty crimes and minor traffic violations, will not be detained. Similarly, ICE will use detainers to identify and deport immigrants who are in jails. ICE Director John Morton, said that ICE will focus on undocumented immigrants who involve in criminal activities and will deport the criminal immigrants from the country and make sure that the country is safe. He also said that the immigration laws will be enforced on offenders and high priority cases.
ICE removed 409,849 immigrants in 2012 and most of them were convicted of crimes. Around 96,828 immigrants were immigration violators and fugitives and 69,957 were deported as they crossed the borders illegally. 55 percent of the deported immigrants were criminals and around 36,166 were traffic violators, 5,557 of them were sexual abusers, 1,215 were deported due to homicide convictions and 40,448 of them were deported for various other crimes.