Thread: TX. Anti-illegal immigration petition hits streets

Anti-illegal immigration petition hits streets

Petitions circulating in Houston seek fall ballot propositions to mandate that police check the immigration status of detainees and that city contractors check the immigration status of all employees.

The group called Stop the Magnet has been circulating the petitions for about six weeks, said communications director Maria Martinez.

The group needs the signatures of about 20,000 registered voters on each petition to qualify them for the November ballot.

The police measure calls for requiring officers to check with the federal government to verify the immigration status of people stopped, detained or arrested ”where reasonable suspicion exists” that they are in the country illegally.

The U.S. Supreme Court is considering the constitutionality of a similar measure enacted in Arizona in 2010. If the Court strikes down the law, Martinez said, Stop the Magnet will not pursue a Houston law.

Martinez said the aim of the petition is to have voters decide, “Do cops have a right to identify or not?” The proposed ballot measure does not mandate that police use a particular method of verification, such as Secure Communities or 287(g), only that officers check in some fashion.

“We want them to have the full ability to check any kind of database that’s available,” Martinez said.

The Houston Police Department prohibits officers from questioning people about their immigration status in the field. However, the department participates in Secure Communities, which checks all suspects booked into jail against a Homeland Security database containing millions of immigration records.

The other petition would require all city contractors and subcontractors to enroll in U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services’s E-Verify program, an Internet-based system for determining whether people are eligible to work in the United States.

“Jobs, if they’re paid for by taxpayers, should go to Americans or those here with a valid work visa,” Martinez said.

Anti-illegal immigration petition hits streets | Houston Politics | a Chron.com blog

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