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we have a hot line that immigrants can give us a call when they get detained by immigration
and the stories that we get from this hotline about New Yorkers right have probably the
widest range of how they got into immigration detention. Ninety percent of the stories we
get even more start with contact with the NYPD now that contact comes at you know its
various contact right and alot of the time what we're seeing is just can be this misunderstanding
of the culture that we come from right especially in high impact zones where you have these
rookies going into these communities that do have alot of sort of activity right whether
that's drugs or crimes or whatever they want to call it so as a culture we'we learned to
resolve certain issues and situations with the systems that we have and an issue let's
say between two teenagers results in a spat, right, the Dual Arrest Law comes into place
so both of them will have to go down to the precinct to get worked out right in a situation like
that because if the officer will not know how to resolve that and basically both people
will have to go to jail and if any of them are non citizens right or undocumented or
non citizens with a criminal conviction that could lead them into a deportation proceeding.
Another situation would sort of be reporting crimes right and that's kind of the biggest
fear that we have is that our communities will then not be able to report crimes to
the NYPD because we will be afraid to get deported and that's again sort of kind of
the way that the NYPD kind of culturally if you don't culturally understand the community
then you're only the only thing you're going to know how to do as far as options to resolve
the situation is go down to the precinct that's why something like secured communities is
going to be really really bad and really negative right now our stories come from you know those
who have made it to Riker's island and they might have done two days we have one you know
story where it was basically kind of an open container type situation and he only had to
do a couple of days in Riker's Island, he's been in immigration detention for about twenty three
months now... It's little things like that really sort of affect that population really bad
and now you have a broken family in Brooklyn the mother has spent so much money on her
son trying to get out on lawyers, now she's you know living with someone else had to leave
her apartment and that you know and that's actually the same community that I come from
and that's the story from Crown Heights, another again high impact zone area where he probably
was out there you know whatever open container but again because of a cultural misunderstanding
cops get heated he got heated and you know he's now on his way back to the island situations
like that where it's really important to sort of stress programs like secure communities
and even you know combined with stop and frisk is just basically a recipe for disaster and
for our communities because it will basically alienate us away from the NYPD and what that means
is that crime will probably increase but it won't probably be documented as that because
then we would have to resolve these issues ouside of the law basically.
Explain secure communities and basically what secure communities is a
program that takes fingerprints from the precinct they normally as they always have they always
go to the FBI but now it will not only go to the FBI but it will also go to immigration
and if immigration considers you deportable which is basically if you're undocumented
and if you're a non citizen with criminal convictions the chances of you being deportable
are extremely high and secured communities will then put a hit out on your name and then
thats where the process will basically start from there, where as it stands right now from
where it has stand for some time now is that it is only until you get to the jails it is
only until you get to Rikers and that immigration has contacted you, and so now if immigration
has contact with you at the precinct and if we can sort of you know start to understand
and all of the reasons why the person makes it to the precinct in our communities because
the precinct is like a very live place precinct is part of our community, right, there are
many people in our communities go to precincts we call it "checking in" you know so now we
have a serious issue where checking into the precinct can mean that your deported and your
family is broken, and when we say broken, we really mean completely desimated.
How can NYPD handle things better, I mean the biggest thing is basically go back to community policing
you know thats the biggest thing get to know the communities a lot better get to know the
players you know and if you're out there trying to just see people as a number which is what
the deportation system sees us as they don't see us as having a family they don't see us
as part of the community they just see us as a young black or Latino person and they
want you out of here because they don't understand us and so i guess for the NYPD is to start
going back to the community and going back to is mandate you know and not a mandate of
you know the more arrests we have that means the most criminals we have which is complete
like is a lie but what happens is now that the more arrests they have we don't get to
get out of the precincts the only time we get out is when we're back home in our home
countries, and I wouldn't even call it our home countries in a foreign land really