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other court staff, Streamline proceedings require the participation of the US Marshals,
pretrial service personnel, and additional Border Patrol agents in the courtroom.
Secure Communities and State Immigrant Laws
As with Operation Streamline, federal immigration enforcement programs run by ICE likely
play a major role in the spike in federal prosecutions of illegal entry and reentry. From
2006 to 2010, ICE referrals for prosecutions of illegal reentry more than doubled. 88 By 2012,
25 percent of prosecuted cases were from ICE referrals. 89 Under programs like Secure
Communities, an unauthorized immigrant who comes into contact with local or state police
can end up detained for ICE, and ultimately referred by ICE for criminal prosecution. 90 We
examined a number of such cases. In some instances, the individuals had been arrested or
convicted of new offenses (usually involving drugs). But in many other cases, defendants
came to the attention of local law enforcement for things as minor as a traffic stop. 91
In Arizona, some defense attorneys told us that some of their clients had ended up being
referred for federal prosecution after they were asked about their immigration status by
local police, as police are authorized to do under SB 1070, Arizona’s new immigrant law
enacted in April 2010. 92 Daniel Anderson, a criminal defense attorney in Tucson, told us
that in one case, a police officer had seen his client, who had been in Arizona for several
years, at a bus stop and asked to see her papers; that encounter led to her prosecution in
Operation Streamline. 93 And an unauthorized immigrant who had lived in Arizona for 17
years similarly told us he was prosecuted for illegal reentry after a traffic stop. 94
88 Syracuse University, Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse (TRAC), “Criminal Immigration Prosecutions Are Down,
But Trends Differ by Offense,” March 17, 2010, http://trac.syr.edu/immigration/reports/227/ (accessed April 14, 2013).
89 TRAC, “Going Deeper” tool, Prosecutions filed by agency, 2012, http://tracfed.syr.edu/index/index.php?layer=cri
(accessed May 10, 2013).
90 Secure Communities allows local and state police to check fingerprints of people they arrest against federal immigration
databases. US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), “Secure Communities,”
http://www.ice.gov/secure_communities/ (accessed May 9, 2013).
91 Human Rights Watch interviews with Yafit Muchtar, Los Angeles, California, October 12, 2012; Adriana Quesado, El Paso,
Texas, September 27, 2012; Carlos Santana, Tijuana, Mexico, October 23, 2012; Mark O’Brien, San Diego, California, October
22, 2012; Antonio Camacho, Rosarito, Mexico, October 18, 2012; Susan Anderson, assistant federal defender, Phoenix,
Arizona, February 15, 2013; and Peter Kirchheimer, attorney-in-charge of the Eastern District Office, Federal Defenders of New
York, Brooklyn, New York, July 11, 2012.
92 The provision empowering police to inquire into immigration status was enjoined until the Supreme Court’s decision to
uphold that particular provision in Arizona v. United States, 567 US __ (2012).
93 Human Rights Watch interview with Daniel Anderson, Tucson, Arizona, February 11, 2013.
94 Human Rights Watch interview with Alberto Brockman Rodriguez, Tucson, Arizona, April 3, 2013.
39 HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH | MAY 2013