From 2008 to 2011, New Sanctuary Movement organized in coalition with other organizations across Philadelphia to end police-ICE collaboration in Philadelphia and to end ICE’s access to the Philadelphia policing database, called the Preliminary Arraignment System (PARS). PARS is the police database that holds all the information about people who have interacted with law enforcement and is not specific to immigration. However, ICE uses that database to identify noncitizens and know their address. The combined affects of police-ICE collaboration through ICE holds and access to the PARS database resulted in many deportations out of Philadelphia.
In 2011, as a result of this coalitional effort, then-Mayor Nutter said he would blind the names of victims and witnesses to crimes from the PARS database.