By KRWG News
New Mexico – Hundreds of human rights groups are asking the Obama administration to end programs that allow local police to check the immigration status of arrestees.
A letter to the president Wednesday says it encourages racial profiling and calls it a dangerous merger of the federal immigration enforcement system with state criminal justice systems.
The letter is signed by the AFL-CIO and a broad range of criminal justice, peace, religious, ethnic and immigrant rights groups around the country, including the Southern Poverty Law Center.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement is expanding a program that permits local police officers to run arrestees' names through a Department of Homeland Security database.
An e-mail to Homeland Security seeking comment wasn't immediately returned.
Copyright 2010 The Associated Press.