I developed this piece in 2012 in collaboration with my friend and fellow Justseeder, Melanie Cervantes, to call attention to the devastating costs of deportation policies. Under the Obama Administration, deportations were at an all time high of 1,100 per day. At the root of these deportations are policies such as SCOMM (Secure Communities) that allowed the collaboration and sharing of data between ICE (Immigration & Customs Enforcement) and local police.
Policies like this not only erode the immigrant community's trust of the police, but it also turns police officers into immigration agents. Despite outrage and criticism from a number of major cities and police chiefs, President Obama made data sharing between ICE and local police mandatory in 2012.
This work demanded a stop to the POLIMIGRA. POLI stands for Police, while MIGRA is a Spanish word for ICE.
