Soapbox: Hold the ICE
Please note: This article is published as an archive copy from Philadelphia City Paper. My City Paper is not affiliated with Philadelphia City Paper. Philadelphia City Paper was an alternative weekly newspaper in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The last edition was published on October 8, 2015.
Philly’s police officers have been turned into de facto deportation agents, and we are all paying a price. In a city where one in eight people are foreign born, it’s a sad fact that too many immigrants are afraid of the police — often afraid enough not to report crimes, even when they are the victims. Too many of our neighbor’s families have been ripped apart by deportations, losing a parent, sibling or child, and often, it’s contact with local police that begins the process.
One big step forward is the city’s recent announcement that it’s reconsidering a controversial police policy of honoring “ICE holds.” U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents are allowed to hold individuals already in police custody for up to two days to try to process them for deportation.
The city should end this policy, but without making arbitrary exceptions for people with certain criminal convictions — something Mayor Nutter is considering and community representatives adamantly oppose.
Right now, ICE has real-time access to information about any person who is fingerprinted by city police. Agents pick from the list, placing “holds” on those with immigration records or simply based on nationality. It’s hard to tell the difference between holding someone in custody based on their nationality and outright racial profiling.
The city can’t meet its commitment to prisoner re-entry and rehabilitation programs if, for some people, release from prison is followed immediately by deportation.
These ICE holds aren’t warrants, they haven’t been reviewed by a judge and they aren’t legally binding.
The Philadelphia Family Unity Network, a coalition of immigrant organizations and lawyers, is pushing for an end to this policy. It is also calling for an end to ICE’s access to individuals in police custody, for police to be instructed to not ask questions about immigration status and for immigrant communities to have a greater voice in setting local law-enforcement policy. These changes are essential to improving the relationship between the immigrant community and local police, and they would make the streets safer for all of us.
Milena Velis is media production director at Media Mobilizing Project, where she creates multimedia stories with those fighting for human rights. Contact her at editorial@citypaper.net.
