Are Hispanics Getting Targeted?
In late March, President Obama took to the Spanish language television network called Univision. The reason was to address the growing concerns in various areas of the country about the seeming target on the back of Hispanics and others who may be in the country illegally. In the last two years, Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents have deported a record number of people from the country, through an initiative set up by President Obama. During his first two years in office, ICE has deported 390,000 immigrants from the country. In his address to the Spanish language network, President Obama said, "We're focusing primarily on criminals because we want to focus on our resources on those folks who are destructive to the community." That is not what is playing out throughout the country, though.

Secure Communities
The president's program is called Secure Communities and while many believe the premise of it is good, others see it falling short. This flagship Obama initiative is designed to help identify and deport any illegal immigrant in the country that is a criminal. The goal is to take the worst of these immigrants and get them out of the country. Secure Communities was initiated by Congress in 2008 as a tool that would identify people convicted of a crime, sentenced to imprisonment and who may be deportable. The program is rolling out around the country currently and was first approved by Illinois State Police in November of 2009. Since that time, 26 of the state's counties have put the program into place, out of the 102 counties in the state. However, many factors play a role in the process of this program, including the requirement of local agencies to work with ICE agents to identify locals who should be deported, through the sharing of fingerprints from a local standpoint through the Department of Homeland Security.

Illinois Concerns
In the state of Illinois, though, there is growing concern that Secure Communities is targeting Hispanics specifically and that this may be worrisome for all involved. There, the program has become a dragnet that is indiscriminately deporting hundreds of people who are immigrants. Those people, they claim are being deported without any criminal record or in situations where their only crime was to work in the country. The statistics from ICE do show that 78 percent of those who were put into the deportation system in Illinois are noncriminal, or they have only committed minor infractions and yet they are part of the supposed criminal only netting of Secure Communities.

Why It Is Happening
There are many viewpoints on why these people are being deported and many are fighting such charges. Some believe that ICE is ignoring the President's directives and priorities in the case. In addition to this, some documents released recently through the Freedom of Information Act, show that ICE agents were working to try an circumvent a local law in Chicago and Cook County that protects people by not allowing local agencies to interfere in immigration enforcement. Many are concerned about why ICE may be pushing the program so hard.