U.S. Immigration And Customs Enforcement Launches Hotline For Detained Undocumented Immigrants

At a time when states such as Alabama and Arizona push for tougher immigration laws, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has launched a hotline for detainees who "may be U.S. citizens or victims of a crime."

ICE wants to "ensure that individuals being held by state or local law enforcement on immigration detainers are properly notified about their potential removal from the country and are made aware of their rights," according to a press release.

The 24-hour, 7-day toll-free hotline -- [phone]-- in English and Spanish, will be staffed by ICE personnel. Translation services will be available in several languages from 7 a.m. until midnight (Eastern) seven days a week. The initiative also includes a new detainer form meant to ensure that detainees are not held for longer than 48 hours as they wait to hear about their deportation status.

The initiative comes after a number of U.S. citizens were detained in immigration detention centers under the Secure Communities program, which is intended to detect undocumented immigrants who are arrested by local police, reported The New York Times.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security recently stripped the man who calls himself "America's Toughest Sheriff," Joe Arpaio, and his 100 deputies in Arizona of their federal powers to verify the immigration status of jailed inmates amid accusations of racial profiling and abuse of power since at least December 2009.

Last September, a similar hotline called the Deportation Family Support Hotline, was launched in Chicago, created by the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights (ICIRR) and run by volunteers. According to ICIRR, during its trial period, the hotline also proved helpful in exposing scams directed at immigrants with deportation cases currently under review, answering questions about promises of reprieves from attorneys and notary publics that preyed on immigrants' unfamiliar with the law.

The Obama administration has said it seeks to improve the "immigration enforcement process and prioritize resources to focus on threats to public safety, repeat immigration law violators, recent border entrants, and immigration fugitives."

aaaa

Comments

[harold19320]

09:06 PM on 01/08/2012

a ONEWAY PLANE TICKET COSTS ABOUT 200.00 SO LOAD THAT PLANE UP

[harold19320]

08:31 PM on 01/08/2012

well i'm a US citizen and got married to a chinese women back in 2009 thought things were going great until immigration papers started to come in she was getting them and sending them to her lawyer she said. Little did I know what the papers were . Found out when lawyer cost 350.00 hr this is when I learned of her past.. She over stayed her visa came into the usa for 3 months that was her visa I knew nothing about till lawyer said this to me then there was a case of marriage fraud from previous husband I knew nothing about. Well it gets worse . she took me to court said i beat her and a bunch of other things little did I know that she filed the I-360 for spousal abuse against me to get a green card so she can stay in the USA well first case got thrown out of court because she lied to the judge and papers showed she lied to the federal gov't also 4 times to stay in the country then when i thought it was over she moved to new york city and filed another I-360 against me and said a bunch of lies to try to get her green card now I'm fighting with New York state court system to clear myself over this mess all for a green card so she can stay in the USA..

[CrestedSparrow]

11:54 AM on 04/02/2012

Thanks for sharing your story. I hope you clear you name and that she is deported.

[luz2409]

10:27 AM on 01/06/2012

It's about time we started protecting undocumented immigrants and U.S citizens from being held indefinitely in these detention centers. ICE immigrants have repeatedly taken undocumented underage students to these centers where they've been held for month without even a hearing. The detention centers are also privately own and Governor Jan Brewer of Arizona has personally invested in them so she profits every time an undocumented person is arrested. It's totally sickening.

[tangeloor]

09:37 AM on 01/09/2012

If you know of any specific person who has been help for months who has not committed an act of violence and was simply an overstay there is something you can do. Call the Detainee Line on their behalf. You will need the persons name and date of birth. If you don't put forth the effort to actually know these people specifically, or why these people were arrested in the first place, you don't add much to the discussion. Generally speaking, it's a lot more cost effective to release someone who is not a threat on their on recog. and have them report in (like being on parole)

[Chatt]

05:35 PM on 01/05/2012

What's the number? 1-800-bye bye...

[Satirist1]

11:56 AM on 01/05/2012

More shameless election year pandering to criminal trespassers.

[BlairCase]

10:44 AM on 01/05/2012

Most dtetained undocumented immigrants readily admit to being in the country illegally. Most waive their rights to a hearing and accept voluntary deportation. They don't want to spend time in a jail cell waiting for a hearing when they know ICE can prove they are in the country illegally.

[Satirist1]

02:36 AM on 01/05/2012

This shameless administration has consistently rejected implementation of E-Verify, employment fraud prevention system. And this, after a prolonged raid by Obama's lawyers on Alabama and Arizona including meetings with illegal immigrants to hear their tales of woe!
And now this!
Hey who cares. The brunt of paying billions to educate the illegals falls on the state taxpayers, not federal.

[CrestedSparrow]

11:57 AM on 04/02/2012

At least 14 states have mandatory E-Verify. I'm pretty sure it the state that needs to mandate the law, not the federal government.

[Satirist1]

02:32 AM on 01/05/2012

This fishing expedition is shameful,. Anyone who ordered to set up this line should be fired immediately.

[tangeloor]

09:49 AM on 01/09/2012

The detainee line was set up primarily for American Citizens (or their families) who have been detained in error. So that you have someone to call if you know for a fact you were born here. Nobody wants to see a USC detained. Likewise, detainees still need to know they are humans and should always be treated so. If they think their rights have been voilated, they at least have a number to call.
The detainer form is not new. It's been used for years. There are new parts to it, but part of the NEW part is that a copy of it goes to the detainee.. the part with the telephone number on it to call if they think they should not be there.

[alpina]

11:08 PM on 01/04/2012

The only thing I want ICE to do with my tax dollar with regard to telephones is 1) trace the phone in the detention center to lead them to more arrests and 2) start a hotline to report any suspected illegal immigrants seen out and about so they too may be detained and deported.

[Sebastin Emmanuel Mata]

02:11 AM on 01/05/2012

It's funny how no one cares what you want ICE to do with your tax dollars.

[Viper1st]

06:42 AM on 01/05/2012

Funny?

I'm a U.S. Taxpayer concerned about what ICE does with their $5 billion annual budget
allocated by the U.S. Congress in which to detect, detain & deport unauthorized illegals out of USA

Taking the jobs of 14 million U.S. Citizens out of work ~ trying to feed, clothe, shelter & educate THEIR Children, with no jobs

While ~ 11.2 million illegals are working, as unauthorized laborers in the USA, & sending $30 billion, a year, out of the U.S. Economy to the homelands of their citizenship allegiances

[alpina]

01:35 PM on 01/05/2012

This coming from someone whose ego is so artificially inflated that they consider themselves the "voice of the voiceless." Now THAT'S funny.

[tangeloor]

09:42 AM on 01/09/2012

#1 - All phone calls from detention centers are recorded specifically so that more information can be found.
#2 There has been a DHS2ICE hotline set up for YEARS. If you have actionable information about suspicious or illegal activity, 866-347-2423. If you have something more than ," I just KNOW he is illegal and I have a description" call it. They happily take all ACTIONABLE material, send it to the nearest HSI office where it can be worked. If the information is unworkable - then you might as well wait until you have a name, plate number, address, business.. SOMETHING tangible to investigate

[sibyl9]

05:39 PM on 01/04/2012

No reason now for Secure Communities not to be fully-implemented nation-wide.

[UKLLee]

02:05 PM on 01/04/2012

Yeah, we're in the middle of a depression and THIS is what we're spending our money on.

Nice going obama, and the left wonders why the world laughs at him.

[Razpooten]

05:20 PM on 01/04/2012

Right, how dare he spend money defending US citizens from rougue sheriffis? Half of the detainees in Arpaio's county have been legal residents or US citizens.

[inthedesert]

07:44 PM on 01/04/2012

What do you base your statement on? Where is your documentation about that claim?

[James Greybush]

01:04 PM on 01/04/2012

"focus on threats to public safety, repeat immigration law violators, recent border entrants, and immigration fugitives."

if you are in this country illegally for more than one day, are you a repeat immigration law violator?

[Razpooten]

05:22 PM on 01/04/2012

"The initiative comes after a number of U.S. citizens were detained in immigration detention centers under the Secure Communities program, which is intended to detect undocumented immigrants who are arrested by local police, reported The New York Times." But hey they were just Hispanic US citizens...

[James Greybush]

01:30 AM on 01/05/2012

Hispanic US citizens that did not carry any valid identification.

[tangeloor]

10:01 AM on 01/09/2012

Secure Communities works like this: A guy gets arrested and fingerprinted. Those fingerprints get sent to the FBI to see if the guy has been arrested before, or if he has a few different names. This is the same process that has been done for years.

The only difference is that AFTER the FBI gets done, they send the prints on to ICE. ICE then checks the fingerprints against the list of people THAT HAVE BEEN PREVIOUSLY ENCOUNTERED BY ICE AND FINGERPRINTED AT THAT EARLIER TIME.

There are holes of course. If the subject has never been arrested by ICE - then SC will never have the option to hit on that nonexistent record.

[Razpooten]

12:09 PM on 01/09/2012

Forget it James this is beyong your grasp.