We have a story up on The Nation regarding the Secure Communities program and racial profiling:

On June 17, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) announced a slate of reforms to its Secure Communities program that director John Morton said are about prioritizing its limited resources and “making sure we focus on those people it makes the most sense to remove.” In reality they amount to a political attempt to salvage Obama’s flagship immigration program, which despite a multimillion-dollar mandate to target “dangerous criminal aliens,” has been undermined by ICE’s own data, which show that the majority of those it deports have no criminal record or were charged with minor offenses like traffic tickets. Critics argue that the program has re-established racial profiling as a legitimate policing practice. If the 1990s catchphrase was “Driving While Black,” now it could be “Driving While Immigrant.”

Above is a video I produced that accompanies the piece. It goes in-depth into the story of Salvador Licea and his fight to remain in the United States. His case is particularly unique since his parents and siblings are living in the U.S. legally but because of poor legal advice, his status remained up in the air. He currently has two daughters and continues to support them through his construction job as he fights his deportation proceedings.

The talented Sean Crowley provided the soundtrack.

PBS /Need to Know: Renee and I went down to Texas to do an in-depth video on how the Secure Communities program was faring in Harris County, located in Houston, Texas. Harris County was one of the first jurisdictions to be a pilot for the program that will go nationwide by 2013. Secure Communities was first launched in 2008 and is promoted as a technology program that is suppose to prioritize the identification and deportation of level 1 criminal aliens. The program relies on police in local jails to enter arrest data into a joint FBI and Immigration and Customs and Enforcement database. A match then results in a detainer on the individual, who will then be transferred to ICE custody within 48 hours.