The Center for Constitutional Rights sent a letter this week to Governor Jerry Brown of California advocating for him to sign the "Transparency and Responsibility Using State Tools" Act ("AB 1081"). The bill prevents local law enforcement officials from holding undocumented immigrants unless they’ve been convicted or charged with a serious or violent felony. The bill will also limit the broad scope of ICE's problematic deportation programs, such as "Secure Communities." CCR's letter urges Governor Brown to sign the bill in order to create safeguards for California's immigrant community.
From the letter:
Dear Governor Brown,
On behalf of the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), I write to express CCR's strong support of the TRUST Act (AB 1081-Ammiano). The Center for Constitutional Rights is a non-profit legal and educational organization committed to advancing and protecting human rights guaranteed by the United States Constitution and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
The TRUST Act will help advance public safety and rebuild trust between California's immigrant communities, local governments, and police by reforming California's participation in the fundamentally flawed "Secure Communities" ("S-Comm") program.
From its initial stages, Secure Communities lacked transparency as to how it has operated, frustrating law enforcement officials, community members and state legislators. For the past two years, CCR, along with our co-counsel, have litigated a Freedom of Information Act Lawsuit against the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), Immigration Customs Enforcement (ICE), and the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI), and the Executive Office for Immigration Review (EOIR). The documents produced through this lawsuit have shown that DHS, ICE and the FBI grossly misrepresented the purposes, tactics, and results of the Secure Communities program to the American public, local law enforcement, state governments, and Members of Congress. In ordering the release of many of these documents last July, United States District Judge Shira Schiendlin wrote, “[t]here is ample evidence that ICR and DHS have gone out of their way to mislead the public about Secure Communities."
Read the rest of the letter by clicking here.
The TRUST Act:
http://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=201120120AB1081
Local Activists Try to Rally Support for TRUST Act:
