Immigrant advocates say the program wholesale feather earrings lands immigrants arrested for investigation of minor violations in detention and erodes their trust in police. They have also criticized the administration for giving the impression that local governments could choose whether to participate when it is in fact mandatory.
States including Illinois and Massachusetts had decided to opt out of the program, only to be told that they couldn't.
At the at-times boisterous meeting in Los Angeles, several dozen people spoke out against Secure Communities and the bulk of the crowd walked out halfway in protest after a speaker challenged the two task force members leading the session to resign. But a handful of people gave the program praise, saying more, not less, immigration enforcement is needed.
"Contrary to what you have heard, Secure Communities does not seek out hardworking, law abiding immigrants for removal," said Anna Pembedjian, public safety deputy for Los Angeles County Supervisor Michael Antonovich. "Rather, it seeks out those who prey on them and others in our peacock feather earrings community,"
On Monday, immigrant rights groups urged members of the task force to call on ICE to end the program and questioned whether any real change would come from the meetings held last week in Dallas and scheduled this week in Los Angeles and Chicago.
Immigrant advocates are planning to hold protests Tuesday against Secure Communities in cities across the country.
Retired Sacramento police chief Arturo Venegas Jr., one of the two task force members overseeing the Los Angeles meeting, said he isn't going to quit.
"We have the opportunity to give voice to you in those halls of government where in the past, in reality we haven't had it," he told the smaller crowd that remained after the walkout in Spanish. "If we leave now, the work will continue, and they will make recommendations without our voice."
The Department of Homeland Security said in a statement that it has recently developed additional training for local law enforcement along with feather hair earring a new policy to protect domestic violence victims. It also said it created the task force to make recommendations for other changes, recognizing "that there is room for improvement in the operation of the program."
ICE is currently running the program in 44 states and plans to achieve nationwide coverage in 2013.
Local law enforcement agencies routinely send fingerprints to the FBI for criminal background checks when an individual is arrested. Under Secure Communities, the FBI shares the fingerprints with Homeland Security to look for potentially deportable immigrants.
