Report: LA County spends $26 million a year to hold undocumented immigrants under Secure Communities
A new report finds that Los Angeles County spends $26 million a year to detain undocumented immigrants for the federal Secure Communities program.
Here’s how Secure Communities works: When local law enforcement makes any arrest, the detainees' fingerprints are sent to a federal database. If the person is deportable, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) will ask local law enforcement to keep the person in detention for no more than 48 hours, until federal agents can transfer that person to one of its facilities.