Fairfax County stands apart from other local Northern Virginia communities in embracing Secure Communities, a controversial immigration program that drew the ire of human-rights organizations and several local governments who claim the program unfairly targets immigrants for deportation. The program, administered by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, is an information-sharing system under which local police can check the immigration status of anyone they arrest.
Neighboring Arlington County is among those that tried to get out of the Secure Communities program, arguing that the program creates distrust between residents and law enforcement and discourages people from calling the police to report crimes. Federal officials originally suggested that Arlington could opt out of the program, but later reversed themselves and said the county would have to participate or lose federal law-enforcement assistance.
While Arlington County attempts to opt out of Secure Communities, the Fairfax County Sheriff’s Office has embraced and applauded it. The county sheriff’s office proudly touts that it was the first community in the Washington region to join the program.
“We have a different outlook on it. We think it’s a good program,” said sheriff’s spokesman Sonny Cachuela. “There’s no profiling, and there’s no enforcement of [federal] immigration laws.”
In March, after the Fairfax County’s first full year in Secure Communities, ICE reported that more than 1,200 immigrants in the county were charged with crimes and 144 were removed from the county.
A slew of media reports have second-guessed that notion. Prince George’s County recently drew the ire of critics in the case of Maria Bolanos, an immigrant woman who called the police for help in a domestic violence dispute only to end up in deportation proceedings after police checked her immigration status through Secure Communities.
When Bolanos confronted ICE Assistant Director David Venturella with the problems she was having with Security Communities, he denied that her problems had anything to do with the program, only to be contradicted later by an ICE spokesman.
Fairfax County Sheriff Stan Barry will address a variety of issues concerning Secure Communities during an online chat Tuesday. Barry is expected to use the online discussion to reassure county residents that their immigration status would not be checked if they called police.
“This capability applies to those arrested and charged, not those who are victims of crimes and report crimes,” Cachuela said. “Members of the community should not be concerned because their prints are not going to be sent in.”
