America’s Silent War – GAO Investigates 287g Immigration Policies

A March 3rd, 2009 NY Times article questions the design, management, reporting and usefulness of the controversial 287g laws.  These federal laws were designed to deport illegal immigrants who committed violent felonies through the use of locally deputized law enforcement officials.  Local law enforcement throughout the nation, including locals in North Carolina, have received federal funding from the department of Homeland Security to deputize officers to handle immigration matters. 

Due to a lack of clear goals and inadequate reporting for this controversial program, no one knows the number of people who have been deported wrongfully from the United States for low-level crimes other than felonies and the US’s Government Accountability Office is now investigating the program.  A recent study by the UNC School of Law and North Carolina’s ACLU Legal Foundation found that 287g immigration policies are resulting in numerous problems including ‘racial profiling and community insecurity’ within Hispanic communities.

The birth of these flawed immigration laws came out of the September 11th attacks.  In an effort to secure the United States’ borders, local law enforcements’ actions against a primarily Hispanic population are misaligned, wasteful of federal resources and culturally insensitive.  It’s time for policymakers to realize that these laws are not targeting the terrorists that they were designed to ‘weed out’ and that this is not a simple immigration issue.  This has become America’s silent and targeted war on people whose ethnic origins originated from below the southern borders of the United States.