{"id":306830,"date":"2017-03-17T13:38:32","date_gmt":"2017-03-17T19:38:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/?p=306830"},"modified":"2017-03-17T13:38:32","modified_gmt":"2017-03-17T19:38:32","slug":"immigration-enforcement-agencies-must-come-out-of-the-shadows","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/2017\/03\/immigration-enforcement-agencies-must-come-out-of-the-shadows\/","title":{"rendered":"Immigration enforcement agencies must come out of the shadows"},"content":{"rendered":"

COMMENTARY:<\/strong> A recent tweet<\/a> from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) revealed that the agency had arrested an Arkansas man on \u201cchild sex tourism charges.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Heath

Heath Haussamen<\/p><\/div>\n

That arrest fit the narrative ICE spreads \u2013 that immigrants are criminals who need to be deported \u2013 so the agency released details.<\/p>\n

But try to get information on a detained immigrant not wanted for any crime other than living in the United States without legal status, and you get a different answer. Last month, after four days of back-and-forth emails, an ICE spokeswoman told me the agency would release no information on a case I was asking about \u201cabsent a signed privacy waiver from the individual.\u201d<\/p>\n

For days, she said she was researching my request. She could have given me that answer from the start. That\u2019s called being given the runaround.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, ICE and other immigration enforcement agencies are allowed to do just that.<\/p>\n

Local and state transparency issues should be spotlighted during this year\u2019s Sunshine Week<\/a>. While New Mexico has some of the stronger state-level transparency laws in the nation, getting agencies to comply is often challenging.<\/p>\n

At least at the local and state level we have recourse through the courts and law enforcement. But federal immigration enforcement agencies like ICE are not required to release information about people they\u2019re detaining.<\/p>\n

As The Texas Tribune recently reported<\/a>, ICE \u201cprovides detailed immigration histories of \u2018criminal aliens\u2019 only when it chooses to \u2014 like after high-profile cases that spark local outrage. ICE refused, meanwhile,\u00a0to give the Tribune identifying information about any significant slice of the immigrant population it detains, deports or releases \u2014 extending privacy protections even to nine of the state\u2019s 12 undocumented death row inmates.\u201d<\/p>\n

That makes it really challenging to learn about what immigration authorities have been doing since Donald Trump became president \u2013 and whether arrests in Do\u00f1a Ana County<\/a> and elsewhere since he took over are \u201croutine,\u201d as ICE insists, or the military operation Trump claims.<\/p>\n

Thanks to reporting by journalists and information from activists, we know that the numbers of people detained may not be higher than under former President Barack Obama, but there is a difference: Folks living in the United States without legal status but not otherwise wanted for a crime were usually left alone before. Now, it appears, agents are detaining such people.<\/p>\n

Regardless of whether you agree with that, it\u2019s a significant policy shift that affects people living in our communities and rips families apart. It deserves public scrutiny so people can hold elected officials accountable for what their government is doing.<\/p>\n

The Boston Globe recently asked Trump to adopt a new level of transparency<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cPresident Obama should not have allowed this vast system to jail and deport people in secret, and you should not, either,\u201d Globe editor Brian McGrory wrote to Trump. \u201cWe urge you to end this secrecy once and for all.\u201d<\/p>\n

The selective release of information is deceptive. Real transparency gives us access to data and people\u2019s stories \u2013 all stories, not just those that fit a political agenda.<\/p>\n

Officials with ICE have complained that reporting on recent arrests was erroneous, irresponsible and harmful. That\u2019s crap. If you want us to report facts, give us facts. If you don\u2019t, you\u2019re to blame when you feel misrepresented. We\u2019re doing our best to find the truth without your assistance.<\/p>\n

We should all join the Boston Globe in demanding transparency from immigration enforcement agencies.<\/p>\n

Heath Haussamen<\/a> is NMPolitics.net\u2019s editor and publisher.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Federal immigration enforcement agencies are not required to release information about people they\u2019re detaining. They should be required to release it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":55852,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1192,10],"tags":[140,706,116],"class_list":["post-306830","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-commentary","category-haussamen-columns","tag-border-and-immigration","tag-transparency","tag-washington"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/306830","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=306830"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/306830\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/55852"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=306830"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=306830"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nmpolitics.net\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=306830"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}