Illinois Governor Pat Quinn announced yesterday that his state will no longer participate in the program. Secure Communities. The governor sent a letter to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) notifying it that the state is withdrawing from the program because the federal government is applying it in a discriminatory manner, and because it is not fulfilling its original mission of locating undocumented immigrants with serious criminal records.
According to Governor Quinn, of all undocumented deportees from Illinois, less than 20% have been convicted of a felony and more than 30% of those deported have never been convicted of a crime. Given this concern, the governor suspended the program in November 2010 and yesterday officially eliminated it.
Under the terms of the program, when a person is arrested, they automatically check their fingerprints against both the FBI and Department of Homeland Security (DHS) databases to verify the person's legal status and find undocumented immigrants. If the fingerprints match any within the DHS biometric system, ICE is notified to process the person under immigration law.
