Friends of immigration focus on anti-immigrant groups
by Mira Cash-Davis 09/29/2008



Representatives from the Center for New Community, a Chicago-based nonprofit organization that advocates for diversity, met with locals Friday night to discuss the growth and recruitment strategies of national groups they called "anti-immigrant."

Hopes were of preventing community crackdowns on immigration in light of the recent immigrant raids in Postville by spreading knowledge of groups pushing questionable policies. Melissa Nelani Ross of the Center for New Community in Chicago delivered the address.

"White nationalists and white supremacists use immigration as a platform to present their views in society," Ross said. Two movements people who value diversity should watch out for, she said, are 287(g) and the Federation for American Immigration Reform.

287(g)

As a portion of the U.S. Immigration and Customs Act, an Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act, an agreement was made between the U.S. Immigration and Custom Enforcement agency or ICE and a city and county government, called 287(g), a federal program, allowing local and county law enforcement officers to undergo training as border security patrol. This way, if a person here illegally is committing a serious crime, he could be deported as an illegal immigrant instead of undergoing trial in the U.S.


Supporters of the program said it would keep people who were here legally safer. Detractors of the bill said it invited racial profiling, especially in a community with as large a Latino population as Ottumwa. Ross pointed out that other so-called "anti-immigrant" legislation has led immigrants to self-deport, in fear of the end of the peace they had been enjoying in the U.S.

She asked the audience to consider a woman in a domestic violence situation. "She can't even go to the police for help for fear of deportation," she said.

Ottumwa and Marshalltown applied for ICE funding for 287(g), according to the Ottumwa Courier. Neither was selected. Neither Mt. Pleasant nor Henry County has applied for consideration for 287(g), according to Ross, who said she spoke with local law enforcement officials.

Ottumwa saw heated discussion about the 287(g) program among diversity advocacy groups and law enforcement there.

The Courier reported in November 2007, "It does not look like the program will go into effect here."

"(Ottumwa Police Chief Jim) Clark announced late this summer that ICE officials told him Congress allocated enough money for only three new cities (in the Midwest) and that they wanted to focus on large cities and border areas," the Courier reported.


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