By NYCLU/WORD Staff on Jun 02, 2011
June 1, 2011 — The New York Civil Liberties Union today applauded Governor Andrew Cuomo for suspending in New York State the federal Secure Communities (S-Comm) deportation program that tears apart families, threatens civil rights and weakens public safety.
Said NYCLU Executive Director Donna Lieberman: “Gov. Cuomo has sent a clear message that New York State respects the values of freedom, justice and human dignity. The governor’s decision ends New York’s participation in a program that was sold as a safety measure but instead made us less safe by making vulnerable communities afraid to call the police for help or to report a crime. Instead of protecting us, Secure Communities has been used as a shortcut to deportation for people who may have done nothing wrong.”
A letter recently released by a former ICE contractor revealed that ICE intentionally misled New York to obtain the state’s participation in Secure Communities. The Department of Homeland Security’s office of the inspector general is also investigating the troubled program. The Telltale Letter: