NEW YORK — A coalition of more than 130 immigration, civil rights, criminal justice reform and pro-democracy organizations is urging Senate Democrats to reject the Combating Organized Retail Crime Act, or CORCA, warning that the legislation would dramatically expand the Department of Homeland Security’s surveillance authority and Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s role in investigations traditionally handled by state and local law enforcement.
The organizations—including the NAACP, ACLU, Amnesty International USA, MoveOn, the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights and the Vera Institute of Justice—sent a letter this week to Senate Democrats as congressional leaders reportedly consider attaching the measure to the National Defense Authorization Act rather than bringing it to the Senate floor as standalone legislation.
CORCA passed the House in May with bipartisan support. The legislation would establish a federal Organized Retail Crime Coordination Center within the Department of Homeland Security to coordinate investigations into organized retail theft and expand information sharing among federal agencies and private retailers.
Supporters argue the measure would strengthen efforts to combat increasingly sophisticated retail theft rings. Opponents contend it would unnecessarily increase DHS surveillance authority while giving ICE a larger role in local criminal investigations.
The campaign against the legislation comes days after ICE agents fatally shot Lorenzo Salgado Araujo in Houston, a case that has intensified criticism of the agency and renewed scrutiny of congressional proposals that would expand DHS authority.
“Lorenzo Salgado Araujo, an immigrant who moved to the U.S. more than three decades ago to make a better life for himself and his family, was wrongly shot and killed in Houston earlier this week by ICE agents,” said Insha Rahman, president and director of the Vera Institute of Justice. “This tragedy is yet one more reason to rein in ICE.”
Rahman criticized Senate leaders for considering the legislation as part of a broader defense package.
“Yet Senate leaders are preparing to expand DHS/ICE’s power by adding CORCA, a trojan horse surveillance bill masquerading as an answer to retail theft, into the National Defense Authorization Act,” Rahman said. “This sneaky move may happen as early as next Tuesday, despite polling that shows 70% of American oppose this bill. Now, more than ever, Democrats must take a stand against CORCA and DHS/ICE from colluding with the private retail lobby to take Americans’ private data.”
The coalition said recent polling found broad opposition to expanding DHS’ role in organized retail theft investigations. According to the groups, 70 percent of voters—including 62 percent of independents and 57 percent of Republicans—believe local law enforcement should be primarily responsible for addressing organized retail theft, while only 17 percent support expanding ICE’s role through CORCA.
“Voters across the country are sending a clear message to leaders in Washington ahead of critical midterms: do not vote for a blank check to expand ICE and DHS’s power,” Rahman said. “CORCA purports to deal with the very real issue of organized retail theft, but is a clear Trojan horse bill that will funnel data to a department that must be reined in. Senators must reject CORCA, just as they have stood united in rejecting funding for DHS and ICE.”
Pima County Attorney Laura Conover said Arizona’s experience implementing the Laken Riley Act illustrates how increased federal immigration involvement can undermine state criminal justice proceedings.
Speaking with the Vanguard, Conover said both the Laken Riley Act and CORCA may have originated under different assumptions but are now being considered in a dramatically different enforcement environment.
“I wonder if both Laken Riley and CORCA… started out as some kind of concept under the Biden era, which has now become such a radically different time at least in the sense of what the ICE agency is, how they are run, how they are managed, how they are trained,” Conover said. “It’s become such a reckless era with ICE, certainly to my mind, and in our experience in a border county.”
Conover described what she said was her office’s first significant case affected by the Laken Riley Act, arguing that it demonstrated the practical consequences of shifting local criminal matters into the federal immigration system.
“So whatever Laken Riley was meant to be or could have been or should have been to the minds of people who voted for it, unfortunately it has played out frankly the way it’s written or the way lawyers feared it would play out,” she said. “We’ve had our first case now and it’s been a disaster.”
According to Conover, the case involved an accused woman facing a low-level theft allegation who was transferred into federal custody before the state prosecution concluded.
“You have an allegation of theft, like a state level, low level theft. Federal agents whisk the accused away into federal custody if the person is not a citizen,” Conover said. “The state had no opportunity to hold to account the victims who both deserved and expected restitution in such a case.”
She said the prosecution believed the accused appeared to be an appropriate candidate for diversion, which could have allowed restitution while avoiding a conviction.
“The individual in question was deprived of all due process, no opportunity to contest the charge against her. Her criminal court attorney was rendered completely ineffective,” Conover explained. “She’s in federal custody and we have two reportedly, I’m told, we have two American citizen young children separated from their only parent. Couldn’t have gone worse, couldn’t have gone worse to my mind.”
Conover said the accused had no prior criminal record, maintained full-time employment and had substantial community support.
“The whole point of our office, of our system is when people go down the wrong path and it’s not their normal path,” she said. “We provide opportunities for them to make amends, make the victim as nearly whole again and move on with a productive life. And the Laken Riley Act just deprived everyone of all the normal expectations of the system. All was lost whether you’re the state, whether you’re the victim, and whether you’re the accused. It’s a complete failure.”
Conover said she views CORCA as an extension of the same federal approach.
“To the extent that CORCA, again, to my mind, is part two of Laken Riley, I’m really hoping the Senate decides not to follow one terrible policy with an even worse one,” she said.
She also questioned whether the legislation would provide law enforcement with authorities that local prosecutors do not already possess.
“Not that I can tell,” Conover said when asked whether CORCA would add meaningful investigative tools. “Money towards ICE right now, any increased resources or power or money to ICE right now, I simply can’t understand.”
Conover rejected the premise that federal intervention is necessary to address organized retail theft, explaining that local agencies already investigate organized theft operations while minimizing risks to employees and shoppers.
“My campaign… is an education campaign because I know that it is very frustrating for my community to go in to their pharmacy or their grocery store or some other retailer and they watch people grab stuff and walk back out,” she said. “It’s all on high quality video.”
She said retailers intentionally discourage employees from intervening because “life is more important than property,” while investigators build cases over time using surveillance footage and other evidence to distinguish between isolated thefts and organized criminal enterprises.
“It’s not that nothing’s happening,” Conover said. “There’s a ton of work happening. It’s just happening safely.”
She argued that those investigations are already being conducted by local law enforcement agencies with experience handling property crimes.
“What does ICE have to do with any of that work?” Conover asked. “These are local municipal property detectives putting together, packaging together, tracking faces and tattoos and scars and imagery… I mean, giving ICE surveillance power under some bizarre guise that that’s going to make Walmart shopping better is frankly incomprehensible to me.”
Other organizations echoed concerns that expanding DHS authority would further empower an agency they say has already exceeded its proper role.
“The DHS Secretary refused under oath to commit to following judicial orders. ICE’s leadership has issued policy memos encouraging its officers to violate the law. And ICE jails people daily in fatal conditions,” said Heidi Altman, vice president of policy at the National Immigration Law Center. “At a time when Americans have expressed fierce opposition to ICE’s abuses and lawlessness, enacting a bill that would hand over more power to the agency is deeply misguided and dangerous. We urge all members of Congress to reject CORCA and will be watching every vote.”
Naveed Shah, political director of Common Defense, said the legislation would have broader implications beyond immigration enforcement.
“As a veteran, it’s indefensible to support a bill that makes us all less free and harms our democracy by increasing surveillance on Americans and immigrants, especially when the surveilled data is being funneled directly to DHS,” Shah said. “ICE has torn apart communities and caused irrevocable harm to so many. Reject CORCA or own that you are enabling the continued destabilizing of our country’s foundational rights.”
The coalition has launched advertising and grassroots organizing campaigns in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Illinois and New Mexico as senators prepare to consider the legislation. Opponents argue that attaching CORCA to the National Defense Authorization Act would limit debate over a proposal they believe would significantly reshape the relationship between federal immigration authorities and local criminal investigations.
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