During Obama’s first year in office, the number of people deported by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) increased to 388,000, the most in U.S. history. Why?

One main reason is that the Obama Administration has maintained an emphasis on enforcement programs. And like its predecessors, the Obama Administration says it’s going after the serious criminal offenders.

But the very programs it’s pushing are not catching major criminals.

Exhibit A: the 287(g) program.

The 287(g) program, which deputizes local police officers to enforce federal immigration law, grew dramatically during the Bush Administration. The program was part of the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act, which President Clinton signed in 1996. Tough enforcement policies were seen as a way to get Republican support for the 1996 immigration bill. That law also made almost any conviction, even for minor infractions, a deportable offense.

The Department of Homeland Security touts the success of this federal-local partnership between law enforcement agencies. However, a report by the Office of Inspector General of the Department of Homeland Security released last week tells a different story.

The report raises serious questions about the effectiveness of the 287(g) program. The report says that the
program is poorly managed and supervised by ICE. The 287(g) program lacks clear guidelines, so it’s being carried out differently in various places. The program isn’t developing data to track itself. And ICE is not going after local police agencies that clearly violate the agreement.

One thing that the 287(g) program is doing well is turning people into ICE, regardless of whether or not they are criminals.

“ICE’s primary performance measure for the 287(g) program is the number of aliens encountered by 287(g) officers,” the inspector general report states. “However, with performance measures that do not focus on aliens who pose a threat to public safety or are a danger to the community, there is a reduced assurance that the goal of the 287(g) program is being met.”

Furthermore, this report goes on to say that results do not show that “287(g) resources have been focused on aliens who pose the greatest risk to the public.”

Hopefully, Secretary Janet Napolitano of Homeland Security will give this new report a hard look, and end this costly program that doesn’t work.