578 National & Local Organizations Sign Letter to the President Demanding an End to Practices that Harm their Communities
(WASHINGTON, DC) – Citing systemic problems within both the immigration and criminal justice systems, 578 groups from across the country including Detention Watch Network today delivered a letter to President Obama calling for an end to the merger of immigration enforcement with criminal justice. The three-page letter expressed concerns and presented proof that the Obama administration’s increased reliance on local law enforcement to arrest, detain, and deport immigrants has exacerbated existing problems in the criminal justice system.
According to the groups, “The merger of immigration enforcement and local criminal justice agencies is not only bad public policy, it also sabotages local law enforcement agencies’ core mission of protecting public safety by undermining the trust of the communities they serve. It discourages people from turning to the police when they need to, even to report crimes. It undermines public safety by diverting scarce resources away from local policing and focuses them on false threats from people who look or sound foreign.”
Read the letter to President Obama.
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