Thread: Immigration advocacy goes local

Immigration advocacy goes local

Updated 1h ago
By Alan Gomez, USA TODAY

As the prospect of Congress passing an overhaul of immigration law wanes, immigration advocacy groups are shifting their sights from the U.S. Capitol and focusing on their local communities.

They are forming neighborhood committees to help legal and illegal immigrants navigate deportation proceedings and learn English. They lobby local police and government officials to resist harsh enforcement and warn neighbors of immigration raids.

"The new front of progress is definitely at the local level," says Stephen Fotopulos, executive director of the Tennessee Immigrant and Refugee Rights Coalition.

Francisco Pacheco, East Coast coordinator for the National Day Laborer Organizing Network, says the local efforts are a way to maintain the cohesion seen during marches against Arizona's immigration law this year and larger protests in 2006.

"The problem was that thousands of people would go to the events, and when it was finished, people would say 'What do we do now?' and they would go home," Pacheco says.

Bob Dane, a spokesman for the Federation for American Immigration Reform, which advocates lower levels of immigration, says people who support tighter immigration controls have also gone local as Congress avoids immigration legislation.

In the first half of the year, 44 states passed 191 immigration laws that included restrictions to public benefits for illegal immigrants, penalties for businesses that hired them and sanctions against human trafficking, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Dane says a large number of municipalities have followed suit.

"The open-borders groups are now beginning to see that the battle has shifted from (Washington, D.C.) to localities," Dane says.

Local actions:

•The Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights created 21 family support networks this spring to set up a safety net for immigrant families whose relatives get deported, leaving spouses and children behind. Executive director Joshua Hoyt says the group is still pushing for immigration legislation introduced by Sen. Robert Menendez, D-N.J., but realized communities should be the focus in the meantime.

"We said, 'We have to figure out a way to organize ourselves to provide support at the same time we challenge the policies,' " Hoyt says.

•In Washington, OneAmerica, a statewide civil rights groups, has established nine community groups. Executive director Pramila Jayapal says they have begun regular discussions with local politicians and police agencies to ensure that the plight of immigrants is understood.

•In Arizona, about 15 "neighborhood defense committees" were created in recent months, and organizers are getting requests to open more around Phoenix.

Arizona lawmakers passed a law that would have required police officers to determine the immigration status of suspects stopped for another offense if there was "reasonable suspicion" they were in the country illegally. It was blocked by a federal judge in July; Republican Gov. Jan Brewer has appealed.

Opal Tometi, whose Puente Arizona organization helped create the committees, says they serve several functions: They train illegal immigrants to know their rights when they are stopped by police. They work with lawyers to navigate deportation proceedings. They offer English classes and arrange for doctors to treat people nervous about going to hospitals.

They send out video teams to monitor for civil rights violations when police or Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents perform immigration raids.

Roy Beck, executive director of NumbersUSA, which advocates lower levels of immigration, says he is troubled by illegal immigrants monitoring police to alert neighbors of their operations.

"That really crosses into a whole different type of political activity," Beck says. "It's very counterproductive to the cause of these immigrant groups, because it'll cause them to seem more foreign and less American."

Alma Mendoza, a single mother of three in Sunnyslope, Ariz., a suburb of Phoenix, says her neighbors were suspicious when she first approached them about joining the committees. Mendoza, who directs the Sunnyslope committee, says illegal immigrants try to keep a low profile in Arizona, and even legal residents are cautious to protect friends or relatives who are illegal immigrants.

"At first, people didn't trust us. They said people wouldn't respond, that it was too hard to organize this group of people," says Mendoza, 37, a Mexico native who is now a legal U.S. resident. "Now in each meeting, we have forty, fifty people. They're thanking us for worrying about the community."



http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/201 ... 1_ST_N.htm

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Illegal immigrants draft legal plans in case of deportation

Updated 18m ago
By Alan Gomez, USA TODAY

Illegal immigrants nervous about stronger enforcement have started drawing up legal documents to spell out what they want to happen to their families and belongings if they are deported.

Attorneys in New Mexico, Arizona and Texas say illegal immigrants began approaching them for help preparing the documents as the national debate over immigration heated up in recent months.

"There's a culture of fear out there," says Jason Mills, a Fort Worth immigration attorney who was not asked for such help until this year.

Cecilia Menjvar, an Arizona State University sociology professor, says immigrant families started preparing informal plans in 2006, when Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents were conducting raids at work sites.


LOCAL: Neighborhood committees help legal, illegal immigrants
IMMIGRATION POLICY: More stories

Children were stranded at school when parents were arrested at work, she says. If workers were caught on the street, relatives didn't know how to phone their employers. Wives couldn't get access to detained husbands' bank accounts. MenjÃ*var says families began discussing who would care for children and preparing emergency lists: "People usually have the firefighters or police on that list, but in this case, it's people who can take care of the kids, the number of employers."

Mills says several things sent illegal immigrants to lawyers this year. Congress has failed to act on legislation that would legalize the status of some of the country's 11 million illegal immigrants. The Obama administration has increased deportations — a record 392,000 people in the past 12 months.

Most striking, Mills says, was the debate that followed passage of Arizona's immigration law, now on hold. It required police with reasonable suspicion to check the immigration status of someone stopped for another reason. It prompted more than a dozen other states to consider similar laws.

"People have gotten scared," he says.

A document drawn up by an illegal immigrant is as binding as any other legal paper, Mills says.

For people with few belongings, a notarized letter can be enough. For those who have money and property, Mary Ann Romero, an immigration attorney in Albuquerque, refers them to lawyers who specialize in wills and trusts.

In Phoenix, a group called Puente Arizona has developed an action plan that contains information about the person, bank accounts, property and designates who is responsible for the children.

Silvia Hernandez, 24, an illegal immigrant from Mexico, is five months pregnant. She is preparing documents to ensure that her partner, a legal U.S. resident, gets custody of her baby if she is deported, not the state foster care system. "I don't want my baby to go into the system," says Hernandez, a University of Texas at Arlington student.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/201 ... 2_ST_N.htm