“This letter is to notify you that the activation date for Montgomery County is scheduled for Tuesday, September 27, 2011,” the three-sentence letter said.
Montgomery already sends information to ICE about people arrested on charges of violent or gun crimes, regardless of whether they are immigrants. It also regularly sends a list of foreign-born inmates to immigration officials. County officials are concerned that the new program’s broader net will draw in many upstanding individuals or those who have made minor mistakes.
In Prince George’s County, for example, a large majority of undocumented immigrants deported via the program were not criminals. Advocates say they are concerned that some victims of domestic violence might stop calling police for help because they fear it will lead to their deportation.
At a rally outside the County Council building in Rockville on Tuesday, Florinda Lorenzo, an undocumented immigrant from Guatemala, described being arrested and jailed a year ago for selling phone cards from her home in Langley Park. Now she faces deportation and will voluntarily leave her three young children, all U.S.-born, with their father and move back to Guatemala to apply to immigrate legally. “I just don’t want to go. I want to stay with my kids right here,” she said.
The District is not participating in the program but will eventually do so, local and federal officials said. Arlington is part of the program — over the vigorous objections of local leaders who thought that their participation was voluntary. But local officials, including those in Montgomery, have learned that federal law trumps local preferences on immigration matters.
The ICE letter was written April 26, the same day council member Nancy Navarro (D-Eastern County) proposed a resolution saying the council “opposes implementation of the Secure Communities initiative in Montgomery County.”
By Tuesday, after scrambling to figure out where the county and council stood legally and politically, council members unanimously passed a radically overhauled version of Navarro’s resolution. The council, it declared, “encourages our public safety officials to work closely with ICE to ensure that the Secure Communities program is implemented consistent with its stated purpose and goals.”
“The resolution itself changed 180 degrees,” said council member George L. Leventhal (D-At Large).
Still, Navarro said, it’s important for the council to be on record with its deep misgivings.
“They’re saying, ‘We’re coming,’ ” Navarro said of immigration officials, adding it’s important for the council’s message to be heard as well. According to the resolution, the federal program, “as currently administered, will create division in our community, promote a culture of fear, and dismantle the trust that our police officers have worked to establish in many immigrant communities.”
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