Growing Number Of Cities Are Fighting Back Against Anti-Immigrant Policies

Growing Number Of Cities Are Fighting Back Against Anti-Immigrant Policies

Jul 11, 2012 at 10:04 am

On Tuesday, the District of Columbia City Council unanimously approved a bill that will limit the circumstances under which local law enforcement is required to hold individuals at the request of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

The effort undermines the federal Secure Communities program, which requires local law enforcement to share fingerprints with federal immigration officials. If an individual’s fingerprints show up in a Department of Homeland Security Database, ICE can ask local law enforcement to detain the individual for 48 hours so it can take the person into custody.

The D.C. decision comes at a time when cities around the country are taking a stand against harsh immigration laws like those seen in Arizona. Since cities cannot opt out of participating in Secure Communities, they are using a strategy of restricting detainment circumstances to fight against it:


“We want to be the anti-Arizona,” Sarahi Uribe, a D.C.-based organizer for the National Day Laborer Organizing Network, told The Huffington Post. “Our entire campaign to get cities to break ties with federal immigration enforcement is an effort to be the opposite of Arizona.”

Opponents of Secure Communities, which is under ICE, say the program has the same effects as SB 1070′s most damaging provisions, by potentially scaring undocumented immigrants away from working with police.[...]

The newly-approved law restricts the period in which immigrants will be held from 48 to 24 hours, requires that ICE pay the local costs of incarceration and specifies that those held on detainers must have been convicted of serious crimes.

The city of Chicago is on its way towards joining D.C. and easing federal immigration enforcement within city limits. Mayor Rahm Emanuel (D) announced on Tuesday that he will also propose an ordinance that would restrict the circumstances in which local law enforcement can turn undocumented immigrants over to federal immigration authorities, noting that they would only be able to do so cases where the immigrants have serious criminal convictions or outstanding criminal warrants.


“If you have no criminal record, being part of a community is not a problem for you,” Mr. Emanuel said, speaking at a high school library in Little Village, a Latino neighborhood. “We want to welcome you to the city of Chicago.”

The mayor said the proposal was part of his goal to make Chicago the “most immigrant-friendly city in the country.”

D.C. and Chicago are not the only places where officials are fighting back against harsh immigration laws. Last week, California state senators approved the Trust Act, which is designed protect undocumented immigrants and push back against Secure Communities. The bill, awaiting action in the Assembly, would prevent local law enforcement officials from referring a detainee to ICE unless the person detained has been convicted of a violent or serious felony.

–Alex Brown

Growing Number Of Cities Are Fighting Back Against Anti-Immigrant Policies | ThinkProgress

Why don't we start suing them for not following the rules...

Quote:

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Originally Posted by mortal_soul

Why don't we start suing them for not following the rules...

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RELATED

http://www.alipac.us/f12/sanctuary-c...action-260827/

"The mayor said the proposal was part of his goal to make Chicago the “most immigrant-friendly city in the country.”

Illegals and immigrants are two different things. They should have said they welcome law breaking illegals. Idiots!

Cook County’s disregard of ICE detainers catches on

July 11, 2012
By: Chip Mitchell

A Cook County policy of disregarding immigration detainers is catching on. Lawmakers in other parts of the country, most recently the District of Columbia on Tuesday, have approved bills modeled after the policy.

Some Republicans are pressing President Barack Obama’s administration to take reprisals against those jurisdictions. On Tuesday, the chairwoman of a House homeland security panel urged U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Director John Morton to punish Cook County for its stand.

The detainers — ICE requests that local jails hold specified individuals up to two business days beyond what their criminal cases require — help put the inmates into deportation proceedings. Jail compliance with detainers is a key part of Secure Communities, a program that has helped the Obama administration shift immigration enforcement toward criminals.

Cook County officials say detainers also erode community trust in local police. Last September, the County Board approved an ordinance that halted detainer compliance by the county’s massive jail. ICE abruptly lost convenient access to hundreds of suspected immigration violators each year.

“The Cook County legislation was very critical and a part of the development for the legislation in the District of Columbia,” said Ron Hampton, a retired Metropolitan Police officer in the nation’s capital who has pushed the D.C. bill.

Hampton pointed to a legal opinion that supporters of the Cook County measure obtained from State’s Attorney Anita Alvarez’s office last year. That opinion, citing a federal court ruling in Indiana, called detainer compliance voluntary and helped convince the Cook County Board to approve the ordinance. Hampton said the opinion also added weight to what he called “a model piece of legislation.”

Since then, New York City, the state of Connecticut and the California county of Santa Clara have also curtailed their compliance with immigration detainers.

On July 5, the California Senate approved a version for that entire state. That bill is expected to pass the state Assembly. Gov. Jerry Brown has not indicated whether he would sign it into law.

At a hearing Tuesday, Rep. Candice Miller (R-Michigan) said Secure Communities had “excellent buy-in” from jurisdictions across the nation. Miller, chairwoman of the Homeland Security Subcommittee on Border and Maritime Security, called Cook County “the big holdout” and asked Morton about it.

Morton repeated an administration claim that Cook County’s disregard of ICE detainers compromised public safety. That claim was the subject of a WBEZ investigation completed in May. Inmates freed as a result of the ordinance, the investigation found, have not reoffended or jumped bail more than other former inmates have.

Morton also told the subcommittee about letters he had written to Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle to spell out his concerns. “We have been working with the county to see if there isn’t some solution,” Morton said. “I won’t sugarcoat it. I don’t think that that approach is going to work in full. We’re going to need the help of others. We have been exploring our options under federal law with the Department of Justice.”

Morton said he would also push for a cutoff of some federal funds for the county’s jail.

That vow won praise from Miller. “I can’t tell you how delighted I am,” she said. “If they’re not going to assist us in removing not only criminal aliens but those that might go on to commit a terrorist attack or what-have-you, because they want to have their city become a sanctuary, the federal government cannot stand by idly and allow that to happen.”

As other jurisdictions adopt the Cook County approach, some enforcement advocates are calling for a tougher federal response.

Ira Mehlman, spokesman of the Washington-based Federation for American Immigration Reform, points out that the Obama administration has sued states such as Arizona and Alabama for taking immigration enforcement into their own hands

“Yet, when it comes to jurisdictions that have openly defied federal enforcement, then the Justice Department seems to have enormous patience and is extremely lenient,” Mehlman said.

Cook County