A few months later, however, federal officials told the county that it couldn’t leave the program. Participating, those officials said, was now mandatory. Both times, the Department of Homeland Security was being honest. The Secure Communities program was voluntarily for communities, until Arlington, the District, San Francisco and others decided they didn’t want to participate. That’s when the federal government made the program mandatory, according to thousands of documents released by DHS. Arlington officials said they were disappointed but not exactly stunned to hear the news that the rules had been changed.
“Frankly, it doesn’t surprise me,” said Walter Tejada, an Arlington board member. “It sounded to me from the beginning that they were conflicted in their own internal dealings. They needed to get their act together then, and it appears they need to get their act together now.”
The county will need to proceed with caution, Tejada said. Even after Arlington was told opting out of the program isn’t an option in a meeting with Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials in November, the county still hasn’t received an official written statement the department promised to send. County staff requests that statement every week since the meeting, Tejada said.
“We’re going to have to wait until we get something in writing from them,” Tejada said. “Right now, nothing has changed as far as I’m concerned.”
The Arlington County Board voted unanimously to opt out of the federal immigration program in September 2010. The county, like so many others, had been automatically enrolled in the program, which shares fingerprints collected by local police between the FBI and DHS.
Tejada said he worries the program will breed distrust between local police and Arlington’s immigrant population.
Despite the board’s concerns with Secure Communities, the county will continue to comply with the program as long as they are still required to participate.
“In Arlington, we have always followed all federal and state laws on everything, including immigration,” Tejada said. “So we needed to know exactly what the deal was. Can we or can’t we opt out, yes or no?”
