Secure Communities: The ICE Partnership

Enforcing America's immigration laws is a federal responsibility. Under the Homeland Security Act of 2002, this responsibility falls to DHS, specifically U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

Since 2008, Congress has expanded ICE's immigration enforcement obligations – directing ICE to create a program to identify criminal aliens and prioritize them for removal.

In light of this direction and the fact that ICE receives limited resources, ICE must prioritize which of the estimated 10 million illegal immigrants in the United States and other removable aliens to pursue. In a memo issued by ICE Director John Morton in June 2010, ICE outlined the way it prioritizes removals. Specifically, ICE prioritizes the removal of those who pose a danger to national security or public safety, repeat violators who game the immigration system, those who fail to appear at immigration hearings, and fugitives who have already been ordered removed by an immigration judge. Because the Administration is committed to using immigration enforcement resources in the way most beneficial to public safety, the primary focus is on convicted criminals, with a priority on aggravated felons.

As a result, record numbers of criminal aliens have been removed, with Secure Communities playing a key role in ICE's ability to fulfill this public safety priority. Between October 2008 and October 2011, the number of convicted criminals that ICE removed from the United States increased 89 percent, while the number of aliens removed without criminal convictions dropped by 29 percent. These trends are due in significant part to the implementation and expansion of Secure Communities. While Secure Communities is only responsible for a limited percentage of ICE's total removals and returns, it has helped ICE identify a more significant percentage of the convicted criminals that ICE removes or returns.

Over time, the percentage of serious offenders removed through Secure Communities will continue to increase, as those convicted of misdemeanors will decrease. This reflects the fact that people who commit more serious crimes serve longer sentences and consequently take longer to come into ICE custody. Since Secure Communities was first activated in October 2008, the percentage of misdemeanant removals has decreased from 40 percent of all removals in fiscal year 2009 to 29 percent of all removals following identification through Secure Communities in fiscal year 2011.