For advocates of a fairer, more humane US immigration system—and, more to the point, for millions of undocumented immigrants—one bright spot in an otherwise frustrating year came in October, when the state of California passed a law to limit the role of local authorities in federal immigration enforcement.
With the so-called Trust Act, California joined a growing list of states and local jurisdictions pushing back against “Secure Communities,” a federal program under which immigrants arrested by local police have their fingerprints checked against a federal immigration database, which can in turn trigger their detention and deportation.
Now another state, Massachusetts, is considering a "Trust Act" of its own, amid concerns that Secure Communities, whose stated purpose is to apprehend serious criminals, is targeting immigrants who aren't genuine threats to public safety. As of December 2012, only 46 percent of the 768 Massachusetts immigrants deported through the program had criminal records, according to the Boston Globe.
Under the proposed law, people released by the courts may not be handed over to immigration authorities unless they have a felony conviction or are deemed dangerous. Unfortunately, that still doesn’t address the plight of people, including legal residents, who face separation from their families for relatively minor crimes designated as felonies, or for very old convictions—but it's a positive change.
Another reason Massachusetts should pass its Trust Act is to improve public safety. Among the biggest critics of Secure Communities are police chiefs and sheriffs, who say that when local cops get involved in immigration enforcement, they lose the trust of the communities they serve—trust that they depend upon to do their jobs effectively. If unauthorized immigrants fear repercussions if, say, they report a crime, they're less likely to come forward, and their communities become less, not more, secure.
Ultimately, though, state initiatives are no substitute for action at the national level. That's why the US Congress in 2014 should pass broad immigration reform, including an effective legalization process that respects families, protects victims from abuses and crimes, and focuses enforcement on actual criminals.
