Federal agents no longer will scoop up jailed illegal immigrants who had been picked up by police for traffic offenses and other petty crimes, the nation's top immigration enforcer announced Friday.
"We are changing who" we seek to detain and deport to focus more on serious criminals, said John Morton, the director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Morton changed the national policy just as sheriffs around the Bay Area were rethinking their cooperation with the controversial federal Secure Communities immigration program, out of concern that it was leading to deportation of too many minor offenders.
The shift responds to the frustrations of immigrant communities in places such as Contra Costa County, which has turned over to federal agents so many illegal immigrants that it is now among the top counties nationwide in sending people without criminal records to deportation.
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