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U.S. Citizen Sues After Erroneously Being Held as an Undocumented Immigrant
Think Progress / News Report
Published: Thursday 12 July 2012
“James Makowski’s lawsuit ‘argues that the FBI and Department of Homeland Security violated the Privacy Act of 1974’ because the government agencies share fingerprints from people who are suspected of immigration violations.”
A U.S. citizen is suing the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security after the fingerprint-sharing program Secure Communities incorrectly identified him as an undocumented immigrant. When Chicago resident James Makowski pleaded guilty in December 2010 to a felony charge and sentenced to four months at a drug treatment facility, the controversial program flagged Makowski as an undocumented immigrant, and he spent two months in a maximum-security prison before immigration officials stopped his erroneous deportation order.
Makowski’s lawsuit — the first legal challenge to Secure Communities — “argues that the FBI and Department of Homeland Security violated the Privacy Act of 1974” because the government agencies share fingerprints from people who are suspected of immigration violations:
“The FBI and DHS are consistently and systematically violating the Privacy Act,” said Fleming, a lawyer for the National Immigrant Justice Center, a nonprofit advocacy group in Chicago. “The FBI should not be sharing this data if they have indications that this individual is a U.S. citizen.” [...]
Secure Communities was started by President George W. Bush in 2008, and the FBI has sent more than 16 million fingerprints to the immigration database since then. More than 900,000 were flagged as potential immigration violators, records show.
The other 15 million sets of fingerprints likely belonged to U.S. citizens, the lawsuit alleges, and their transmission violates the Privacy Act.
As the Los Angeles Times reports, only 26 of Illinois’ 102 police jurisdictions participate in Secure Communities, and some departments were concerned that sharing fingerprints with immigration officials would make witnesses less likely to cooperate with police. Some officials are limiting the scope of Secure Communities in their areas. The D.C. city council unanimously approved a bill to reduce the ability to enforce Secure Communities by limiting when D.C. law enforcement must hold individuals at the request of immigration officials, and Chicago’s Mayor Rahm Emanuel (D) announced yesterday that he will propose a similar ordinance.
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By Tara Culp- Ressler
6 comments on "U.S. Citizen Sues After Erroneously Being Held as an Undocumented Immigrant"
July 12, 2012 3:42pm
. . . he spent two months in a maximum-security prison before immigration officials stopped his erroneous deportation order.
. . . after you name the felony and the mandated sentence . . . EXPLAIN WHAT HE IS TALKING ABOUT......A GIFT FROM GOD ???
. . . . ONCE HE PLEAD GUILTY HE SURRENDERED - ALL HIS RIGHTS AS A CITIZEN........so what are you talking about ???
July 12, 2012 2:12pm
How can such institutional cruelty persist in the United States? In part, it’s the “legal fiction” that draws distinctions between the rights of U.S. citizens and everyone else. But it’s also the secrecy and lack of accountability that this immigration prison bureaucracy cultivates and protects. Whether in the old INS or new Department of Homeland Security, immigration authorities have raised misinformation to an art form. Dow dissects the use of dehumanizing terms such as “alien” and “illegals,” and euphemisms such as “detainees” and “detention center” for prisoners with limited recourse against the immigration jailers who also are judge and jury. “American Gulag” uncovers those lies for what they are. ...
http://www.nieman.harvard.edu/reports/article/100738/Making-Visible-What...
July 12, 2012 3:36pm
.did you read the article ??
. . . James Makowski pleaded guilty in December 2010 to a felony charge . . .
sentenced to four months in a drug program ?.?.?
Now wants to sue ??? for more drugs ???
July 12, 2012 8:13pm
I read the article did you? Reading includes the skill of comprehension. He is suing for false imprisonment by "Homeland Security" He pled guilty to drug possession, not for being an illegal.
July 12, 2012 2:13pm
Technically speaking, under Federal Law they can hold you for 12 months without ever charging you with a crime. All they have to do is "Officially" declare you a "material witness" without having to prove it. I've seen it myself many times in Miami. As well as ship people to the Krome Immigration Prison and then the burden is on you to prove you are a citizen since INS now ICE has its own code and the Federal Court System has no jurisdiction in Immigration cases.
After being picked by ICE officials, either at the Border, through Secure Communities, or by local officials by way of Section 287(g), an individual can be released on bond if they are not deemed a “threat” to national security. However, many are put in mandatory detention and are disallowed any custody review of their eventual deportation hearings. The enactment of AEDPA and IIRAIRA subjected a wider range of individuals to mandatory detention, including, “non-violent misdemeanor convictions without any jail sentence, and anyone considered a national security or terrorist risk.” In addition, if an individual is already in the U.S., they will be put in mandatory detention if suspected of being a threat to national security or charged with two crimes of “moral turpitude,” an “aggravated felony,” a firearms offense, or a controlled substance violation.[16] Thus, crimes that did not assign jail time to the individual may subject them to mandatory detention. The ACLU has condemned this practice, saying that it violates due process and is inefficient and costly, since individuals who do not pose a threat to national security but have a criminal record are often the ones subjected to mandatory detention.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_detention_in_the_United_States
July 12, 2012 10:25am
See. You wouldn't be doing this to me if I wasn't Polish !!!!!!!