New York – In response to yesterday’s announcement that, as part of his new immigration policy, President Obama has terminated the Secure Communities deportation program, the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) issued the following statement:
While Obama’s announced immigration reforms have not gone far enough, the termination of the misguided and dangerous Secure Communities program is welcome news for the millions of individuals and families who have lived for years in fear of being deported. We worked with our allies to fight the roll-out of S-Comm, reveal the destructive results of the policy, and warn of the dangers of turning local police into immigration enforcers. Despite three state governors publicly denouncing the program in 2011, it had continued under the Obama administration until now.
In the past year, numerous localities – including, most recently, New York City – responded to community outcry by passing laws limiting or ending their cooperation with a federal program that tore apart countless families. The termination of the Secure Communities program and President Obama’s announcement of revised immigration enforcement policies to provide temporary relief to many undocumented immigrants are acknowledgments that, while increasing and consolidating law enforcement powers most often leads to racial profiling, due process violations, and other discriminatory and unconstitutional practices, communities can come together and successfully challenge these abuses. The same demands for fairness and justice will rightly be directed at the remaining abuses of Obama’s immigration detention and deportation policies, including the expansion of both individual and family immigration detention and the cruel policies toward Central American refugees.
In 2010, with the National Day Laborers Organizing Network (NDLON) and the Immigration Justice Clinic of the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law, the Center for Constitutional Rights filed a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit, demanding records related to Secure Communities. The documents obtained through the lawsuit, which were made public by CCR, NDLON, and the Cardozo clinic fueled calls for an end to the program.
We’re not backing down in the face of Trump’s threats.
As Donald Trump is inaugurated a second time, independent media organizations are faced with urgent mandates: Tell the truth more loudly than ever before. Do that work even as our standard modes of distribution (such as social media platforms) are being manipulated and curtailed by forces of fascist repression and ruthless capitalism. Do that work even as journalism and journalists face targeted attacks, including from the government itself. And do that work in community, never forgetting that we’re not shouting into a faceless void – we’re reaching out to real people amid a life-threatening political climate.
Our task is formidable, and it requires us to ground ourselves in our principles, remind ourselves of our utility, dig in and commit.
As a dizzying number of corporate news organizations – either through need or greed – rush to implement new ways to further monetize their content, and others acquiesce to Trump’s wishes, now is a time for movement media-makers to double down on community-first models.
At Truthout, we are reaffirming our commitments on this front: We won’t run ads or have a paywall because we believe that everyone should have access to information, and that access should exist without barriers and free of distractions from craven corporate interests. We recognize the implications for democracy when information-seekers click a link only to find the article trapped behind a paywall or buried on a page with dozens of invasive ads. The laws of capitalism dictate an unending increase in monetization, and much of the media simply follows those laws. Truthout and many of our peers are dedicating ourselves to following other paths – a commitment which feels vital in a moment when corporations are evermore overtly embedded in government.
Over 80 percent of Truthout‘s funding comes from small individual donations from our community of readers, and the remaining 20 percent comes from a handful of social justice-oriented foundations. Over a third of our total budget is supported by recurring monthly donors, many of whom give because they want to help us keep Truthout barrier-free for everyone.
You can help by giving today. Whether you can make a small monthly donation or a larger gift, Truthout only works with your support.