Philadelphia Mayor accuses ICE of "misusing" a law-enforcement database for racial profiling

Mayor Kenney, an outspoken Democrat that his office discovered the agreement with ICE was being mis-used to racially profile and “round up” undocumented but otherwise law-abiding immigrants in Philadelphia.

“We found out through careful investigation that they were … going to houses to round up people that were otherwise law abiding and had no interaction with the police, and were using that to deport people,” he told Univision in an interview in his office.

ICE agents were using the information that they garnered from the law-enforcement database, known as PARS, to profile people “who had not been arrested for anything, not been charged with anything,” he said. “We decided we are not going to assist them in ethnically or racially profiling people and using this information to deport people.”

PARS stands for the Preliminary Arraignment Reporting System, a real-time, computer database of arrests, operated by cities across the country. Philadelphia is one of the largest cities to opt out of an agreement with ICE to share that information.

ICE officials do not deny that the agency’s use of PARS can result in immigration enforcement actions against city residents who have not been accused or convicted of a crime. The PARS datebase allows ICE to find people who were born outside the United States, then target them for possible deportation, even though the database does not list their immigration status.

Kenney’s decision followed months of consultation with community groups, lawyers, and immigrant advocates, as well as protests by anti-ICE demonstrators.

The Department of Homeland called the action “an irresponsible decision that results in the city harboring criminal aliens.” DHS spokeswoman Katie Waldman said in a statement: “Sanctuary city policies make American communities like Philadelphia less safe by putting the rights of criminal aliens over the safety and security of American citizens.”

But Kenney insisted the opposite was true, arguing that the agreement with ICE had undermined the public’s trust in local police force. “You don’t make our city safer, or any city safer, by scaring people from calling the police, from being witnesses, people who are victims of crime will not report it, witnesses will not come forward or testify in court because they think there is an ICE agent waiting in the courthouse to drag them away.”

He added: “When bad guys know that immigrant communities are afraid to report to the police, they’ll prey on them ever more.”
Philadelphia’s foreign-born population increased 69% from 2000 to 2016 — to more than 232,000 — and now represents nearly 15 percent of all city residents, according to a new analysis by the Pew Charitable Trusts.

But Kenney said his decision was based on legal and human reasons.

“They were taking people off the street, off their front steps…no Miranda warnings, no charges, basically saying ‘give us ten names of your friends who are undocumented and we’ll let you go.’ That’s not fair, that’s not constitutional, and everyone, whether you are a citizen or not, everyone has the protection of the constitution when they are in this country.”

The descendant of Irish immigrants, Kenney takes the issue personally, and has been known to choke up when talking about his own roots in the city. “I just want to keep these people who are seeking the same thing that my ancestors sought, and opportunity to be here without being harassed,” he said.

“When then Irish came here back in the 1840s there was no Ellis Island, there were no papers, we just got off the boat and we went to our neighborhoods and lived for generations, got better and more educated. And that’s what I want for people from Guatemala, and Honduras and Mexico or other places to come here as a safe-haven,” he said. “Trump has used this as wedge between hateful, ignorant people, who are generally racist.
This would not be happening to Western Europeans. If the immigration flow was coming from Germany and England and Ireland, we would not be having this discussion. But because the majority of the people who are coming in who are undocumented are brown and black, that’s what this is about.”

Kenney filed a federal ‘sanctuary city’ lawsuit against the Trump administration over the right to limit police cooperation with ICE. In June, a federal judge ruled for Philadelphia, saying the city’s position was fair and reasonable.

A federal appeals court ruled Wednesday that Trump exceeded his authority when he threatened to withhold funds from sanctuary cities that do not fully cooperate with U.S. immigration authorities. Trump signed the executive order on Jan. 25, 2017, just five days after taking office, calling undocumented immigration a "clear and present danger" to national security.

But courts have ruled that spending powers belong to the legislative, not executive, branch of government.

Kenney, who plans to seek re-election next year, told Univision it was a matter of human decency. “I’m responsible for keeping people protected as best I can and not cooperating with wrongheaded policies out of Washington, hateful, hurtful policies,” he said. “I try to do the right thing … you have to be a human being first. It’s important to get re-elected and all that stuff, but if you are not a good human being, if you are not a decent person, then you shouldn’t be re-elected.”

Kenney said his decision had nothing to do with abolishing ICE, as some Democrats have called for. He said the city would continue to cooperate with Homeland Security when it comes to crimes such as human trafficking, as well as other law enforcement branches such as the FBI, the DEA, and ATF. “They’re our partners in law enforcement. We will always cooperate with them,” he said.

Rather than treat undocumented immigrants as criminals he said Washington should dedicate its efforts to comprehensive immigration reform.

“If people know there is a dependable method to get into the country they would do it that way,” he said. “But they realize the only way they are getting away from the violence they are facing in their Central American town, in their neighborhood, domestic abuse or drug cartels. These people are running away from danger, they are trying to get their kids out of harm’s way. We should be trying to help them, not trying to send them back.”