First Amendment Center says 287(g) change would "disappear people in America"; sheriff and immigrant advocates also oppose proposed closing of records

This WSMV story quotes the First Amendment Center's executive director Gene Policinski on a proposed change by the Department of Homeland Security to reduce public access to 287(g) data:

"There's a very important factor here going back to colonial times, which is knowing who is in custody," said Gene Policinski, executive director of the Nashville and Washington, D.C.-based First Amendment Center.

"We don't 'disappear' people in America," he said, referring to a practice often associated with dictatorships in which people are detained by authorities who refuse to divulge where they're held or even if they are in custody.

Read the full story here.

The First Amendment Center was founded by John Siegenthaler the same year he stepped down from senior positions at the Tennessean and USA Today. The First Amendment Center is an operating program of the Freedom Forum, with offices at Vanderbilt University in Nashville and also Washington, D.C. and associations with the Newseum and the Diversity Institute.