JALSA in MassLive.com on ICE Immigration Enforcement

Full article at this link.

Excerpt from ICE uses surveillance, police data to target Mass. immigrants, advocates say

Though law enforcement agencies in Massachusetts have no formal agreements to cooperate with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and some even prohibit it in non-criminal cases, it hasn’t stopped the extensive sharing of information with the federal agency, according to immigration advocates.

Members of a variety of legal and immigration organizations testified before the state Legislature on Monday about the ways they are struggling against mass deportations under President Donald Trump. Lawmakers from the Joint Committee on Racial Equity, Civil Rights and Inclusion discussed measures the state can take to protect immigrants, but learned that law enforcement already provides a lot of help to immigration enforcement efforts.

“There’s this massive complex that we would probably like to think that as a state, we are not part of. And we are,” said David Albright, director of policy and advocacy at the Jewish Alliance for Law and Social Action. “It’s meant to be very opaque and confusing, and it’s meant to draw people in, get them out of Massachusetts as quickly as they possibly can, and keep them in that system and then get them out of the country.”

Around the country, state and local law enforcement agencies formally share information with ICE through a program known as 287(g). Though the only agency in Massachusetts with a current 287(g) agreement is the Department of Corrections, those who testified Monday afternoon told lawmakers that police departments and sheriff’s offices across the state still share plenty of information with federal immigration enforcement.

Joshua Dankoff, director of strategic initiatives at Citizens for Juvenile Justice, said law enforcement agencies have wide discretion on when and how much they share immigration information. For example, he said, Quincy Police Department runs an immigration status check every time they arrest someone born outside of the country, which is automatically shared with ICE. In Everett, officers may choose to share information with ICE if they believe it “serves a public safety interest,” but Dankoff said there is no further specification to what qualifies.

Every sheriff’s office in the state also shares information with ICE, Dankoff said.

Albright described a program that immigration advocates have nicknamed “Bounty Bucks,” where ICE provides a list of names to a local police department with the promise of increased funds if police are able to locate everyone on the list.

Beyond simply sharing information, the Plymouth County House of Corrections also contracts with ICE to hold immigration detainees before they are moved out of state or deported.