Texas county pulls out of program for local police to act as immigration agents
Source: The Guardian
Texas county pulls out of program for local police to act as immigration agents
Activists celebrate a victory in resisting Trump’s crackdown
on undocumented immigrants but Republicans are weighing
other methods to force compliance
Tom Dart in Houston
Monday 27 February 2017 12.00 GMT
Oscar Hernández recalls how his uncle paid a double price when he was arrested for failing to pay road tolls: local police in Houston handed him to immigration officials who deported him to Mexico.
In the years since, Hernández, also an undocumented immigrant from Mexico, has campaigned to end a program that deputises local officials to act as federal immigration agents, potentially turning a minor infraction into a life-altering event.
The 28-year-old community organiser with United We Dream celebrated a victory this week, after the Harris County sheriff’s office announced it would end its use of this program, known as 287(g).
The announcement from the county’s new sheriff comes as Donald Trump has escalated the pressure on local police to work more closely with immigration officials. In an executive order signed in January, he cited 287(g) to say that he would “empower State and local law enforcement agencies across the country to perform the functions of an immigration officer”.
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Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/feb/27/texas-harris-county-police-immigration-agents-program
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