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Immigrant rights activists rebuffed by DA
Philadelphia immigrant rights activists continue to pressure Mayor Nutter and District Attorney Seth Williams to cancel program that gives Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents access to police database.
Immigrant rights activists rebuffed by DA
Philadelphia immigrant rights activists continue to pressure Mayor Nutter and District Attorney Seth Williams to cancel a program that gives Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents direct real-time access to the city's Preliminary Arraignment Reporting System (PARS), which holds data on arrestees.
DA Williams refused to send someone to meet with the group, while Director of Multicultural Affairs Izzy Colon received the letters on behalf of Mayor Nutter.
Marta Villanueva and Jen Rock of the New Sanctuary Movement arrived at 10:30 a.m. today to deliver the stack of 525 letters to the DA demanding the city cease collaboration with ICE. Rock says that she had spoken with Director of Community Outreach and Government Relations Vernon Price, a former ward leader from East Mt. Airy, and let him know they would be delivering the letters.
"I talked to Vernon Price and told him that we would be by. He told me, 'Send it to me by email.' Which is what he said last time. Somehow, I thought this would be different."
Price came downstairs after 15 minutes, but refused to acknowledge the group, speaking to the guard stationed behind security glass before returning upstairs. The security guard received the letters.
"Constituents across Philadelphia signed letters asking him to cancel PARS, and no one would even take the time to meet with us. We're very concerned."
Signers included City Council members Maria Quiñones-Sánchez and Jim Kenney, Taller Puertorriqueño Director Carmen Febo San Miguel, and organizations including Congreso, ACLU, Hispanic Clergy of Philadelphia, and numerous Catholic, Asian, and labor groups.
Though the District Attorney's office declined to comment, the debate is now receiving regular media attention in The Inquirer, Daily News, WHYY and even national outlets like Huffington Post.
Across the street at City Hall, Izzy Colon seemed sympathetic to the group's message that ICE-police collaboration caught too many non-criminal undocumented immigrants in its dragnet, and that immigrants were now afraid to report crimes to police because of deportation fears.
"We hope they will separate police and immigration," explained Marta Villanueva. "We know of a lot of crimes that are not being reported because people are afraid."
As I reported earlier this week, the PARS agreement is caught up in the national debate over an increasingly controversial deportation program called Secure Communities. While numerous state and local leaders have protested the program, Mayor Nutter has been silent. The only organized constituency in Philadelphia speaking out on this issue are immigrant rights activists, so it seems likely that Nutter is responding to pressure from somewhere else — like Washington, D.C.
Yesterday, President Obama responded to growing pressure from advocates — and growing concern about the Latino vote come 2012 — and announced that ICE would use "prosecutorial discretion" to cancel the deportation of some non-criminal immigrants, particularly youth planning on attending college or joining the military.
This is no such thing as an "undocumented immigrant" as there is no such thing as a drug dealer being called an "unlicensed pharmacist." Stop playig with words. They are illegal aliens.— barneygoogle
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