Hotline
Help for US Immigration Detainees
US
immigration office launches new telephone hotline for immigration detainees
held by local police. It is created to know about their rights and to ensure
it. It was announced by federal immigration official Thursday.
.Detainees held by
state or local law enforcement agencies and
“believe they may be US citizens
or victims of crime”, can enquire and get replies through the toll-free
telephone number (855)448-6903. It was announced by the US Immigration and
Customs Enforcement Agency. In online more information would be posted about
hotline- a ICE official, in Washington ,
dot not disclose more, as they are not authorized to say.
The statement said that multilingual interpreter, sufficient
staffs with ICE personnel will serve in
hotline 24 hours of a day, 7 days of a
week. For rapid action the query will be
received by a ICE personnel and send it to the relevant ICE Enforcement and
Removal Operation Field Office.
ICE officials said about a new plan to issue a form for
detainees in several languages such as English, Spanish , French, Portuguese,
Chinese and Vietnamese. It will inform the detainees about the ICE’s assumption
regrding their custody within 48 hours. The sample copy of form will be available online Thursday.
In the statement
there is an advice for the individuals that if they are not be taken to
custody by ICE within 48 hours, they have to contact with the law enforcing
agency and those who are investigating about them for their release from state or local custody.
It makes a controversy about the power of local law
enforcement agency to detain those
people who are believed to be illegal
immigrants.
Federal law does not enforced by police normally. But
regarding suspects, criminals police has
responsibility to turn over them to
immigration authorities for possible deportation.
The federal government partners local
enforcement agencies to deputize police
this work under 287(g) program, establish in 1996.
ICE’s agreement are being executed by 69 law enforcement
agencies in 24 states and Loss Angeles
Sheriff’s Department. ICE’s record says that the program is succeeded to identify more than 21300 probable and deportable illegal immigrants since 2006. Most of them are detained in
local jails.
According to the agency 1500 state and local officials were
trained and certified under the program
of ICE.
Immigrant right group
criticized the program. They say it
has led to disregard of civil
right., racial profiling. In Arizona
the authority has been controversial. Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio criticized
it as mistreatment of suspected ellegal immigrant
This month justice department suspended the 287(g) agreement with Arpaio
and his deputies.The suspension followed by an investigation of conducting
campaign of racial profiling against Latinos, making unlawful arrests and
disregarding civil rights to prevent illegal immigrants.
Besides, the Maricopa
County jail officers'
authority has been ended to keep people under custody and held
immigration violators , who are not involved with local crime. It was done by
U.S. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, a former
governor of Arizona.
New hotline is “a positive development” but it was “overdue”
and “inadequate” says
Thomas Saenz, president and general counsel of the Mexican
American Legal Defense and Education Fund, based at the national Latino civil
rights group’s Los Angeles
headquarters. He said ,“Often people who are subject to ICE detainers have no
idea why they are being held,” “This
kind of step should have been in place the very first time ICE undertook an
expansion of its detainers
Saez added that the detainees who
are to make a call and follow up ,would be courageous, knowledgeable and
financially solvent , otherwise they would feel frightened and would not be able
to handle their case rightly.
No comments:
Post a Comment