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Harris County commissioners court approves 287g agreement
by SDS Media Team
Thursday, Oct. 29, 2009 at 9:27 AM
sdsuhtx@gmail.com
A breif report about the the vote that took place this past tuesday October 27th and links to corporate and other media reports on the agreement to have Harris County Sheriff work with ICE in the 287g program.
We want to thank all the folks that came out on Tuesday to show opposition to racial profiling by Houston law enforcement and stand up for immigrant communities. Despite packing the meeting room with opponents of the program, and the vast majority of speakers opposing the program, the commisioners voted 4 to 1 to join this program. Judge Ed Emmet, Jerry Eversol, Steve Radack, and El Franco Lee (who as commissioner for precinct 1 represents the University of Houston) voted in favor of the program. Only Sylvia Garcia voted against the program.
The event was relatively well covered by local media (in that they talked about it on tv, not that they put it in context or examined the racist and bad public policy behind the program), check out these stories:
ABC 13 coverage (this one has a poll on if you support 287g. Vote no!)
NBC Chanel 2 coverage
Fox Houston coverage
Chanel 39 CW coverage
Houston Chronicle (the version in the printed edition has a quote from Eric of SDS!)
Houston Press Hair Balls Blog (by Liana Lopez of the Nuestra Palabra crew)
The Daily Cougar's coverage (University of Houston's paper)
Local and regional groups fighting 287g and for immigrant rights, including SDS, are meeting today and are going to be working on developing strategies to try and document the impact this will have on Houston families, the expenses this will place on Harris County at a time when they are cutting social services, and the likely increase in racial profiling that will result.
In Irving Texas, when the local police entered into a CAP agreement (a similar program to 287g that gives access to immigration records in their city jail) with ICE in 2006, arrest records have shown an increase in arrests of Latinos for petty offenses. The University of California at Berkley Law School wrote a report [download pdf] that exposes the expansion of racial profiling that took place once they reached an agreement with ICE.
sdshouston.wordpress.com/2009/10/29/287g-approved-by-county/
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