State Immigration Enforcement, Human Dignity and Poverty:

What Should I Know?

What Can I Do?

Karen Siciliano Lucas, CLINIC

Sept. 20, 2011

• Federal/state partnerships (ICE ACCESS)

• State legislation and local ordinances

What does state immigration enforcement look like?

• Federal/state partnerships (ICE ACCESS)

What does state immigration enforcement look like?

• Secure Communities

• Criminal Alien Program

• 287(g) Agreements

• other agreements

What does state immigration enforcement look like?

Q: Can you be deported through these programs for something as minor as speeding,

jaywalking, or even littering?

A: Yes.

Q: Can you be deported through these programs if you aren’t charged with or convicted of any crime?

A. Yes.

What does state immigration enforcement look like?

Between 10/08 and 06/10, what % of individuals deported through Secure Communities were non-criminals? Here are the worst:

• Travis, TX: 82 percent• St. Lucie, FL: 79 percent• Yavapai, AZ: 74 percent• Tarrant , TX: 73 percent• Broward, FL: 71 percent• Suffolk, MA: 68 percent• Hillsborough, FL: 66 percent• Miami-Dade, FL: 66 percent• Pima, AZ: 65 percent• Wake, NC: 64 percent• Collin, TX: 63 percent• San Diego, CA: 63 percent• Santa Barbara, CA: 58 percent• Dallas, TX: 56 percent• Ventura, CA: 56 percent• Webb, TX: 56 percent• Maricopa, AZ: 54 percent

Source: Cardozo School of Law et. al., Briefing Guide to Secure Communities

What does state immigration enforcement look like?

To find out if the Secure Communities program is active in your jurisdiction, visit this map on the ICE website:

http://www.ice.gov/doclib/secure-communities/pdf/sc-activated.pdf

To find out if your jurisdiction has an active 287(g) program, visit this ICE website:

http://www.ice.gov/news/library/factsheets/287g.htm

• State legislation

What does state immigration enforcement look like?

• Restricting access to driver’s licenses and voter ID

• Expanding the list of behaviors that are criminal

• Criminalizing the act of looking for work

• Criminalizing the act giving and asking for a ride or shelter

• Rendering contracts unenforceable

And then there’s the actual enforcement….

• Restricting access to public benefits, including education

• Sanctioning employers who hire unauthorized workers

• State police get wide powers:

What does state immigration enforcement look like?

• warrantless arrests

• private right of action to sue to enforce law

• Georgia’s immigration enforcement board

• holding arrestees in jail until status can be verified

• automatically denying bail to undocumented

Here are the 2011 state legislative session results….

• “attrition through enforcement”

• “reasonable suspicion”

2011 State Legislative Session Summary

• Still, of the twenty-five (25) states that threatened at the beginning of session to pass strong immigration policing bills, only five (5) enacted them into law

• And there are a few more reasons to hope

• States are now free to pass even more employer sanctions bills (17 are already in place)

2011 State Legislative Session Summary

Source: Turning the Tide Campaign

• 5.5 million children live in the U.S. with at least one undocumented parent

What happens to families affected by detention and deportation?

• 3 million of these children are U.S. citizens

• 108,000 alien parents of U.S. citizen children were deported between 1998 and 2007

Source: Women’s Refugee Commission, Torn Apart by Immigration Enforcement: Parental Rights and Immigration Detention (December 2010)

• children may be placed in the care of the state

What happens to families affected by detention and deportation?

• family income security decreases without wage earner

• children’s psychological and developmental effects

• parents may lose parental rights without notice

• NO right to counsel

• NO centralized system for tracking detainees locally

• ICE discretion inconsistently applied

• NO consistent policy for CPS to access detained parents

What happens to families affected by detention and deportation?

Site # of house-holds

Before arrest

<6mo since arrest

Change since arrest

>6 mo after arrest

Change since arrest

All 85 $509 (1.8)

$154 (1.1)

-70% $238 (1.3)

-53%

Table 1: Average Weekly Household Income and Workers Before, After Arrest

Source: Urban Institute survey of families in which parents were arrested in ICE raids in Grand Island, New Bedford, Van Nuys, Postville, Miami, and Arkansas. In The Urban Institute, Children in the Aftermath of Immigration Enforcement (February 2010).

What happens to families affected by detention and deportation?

Response Could not afford enough food (46)

Could not afford balanced meals (46)

Reduced size of meals (46)

Ate less than before (45)

Experi-enced hunger (46)

Never 8 10 18 19 33Sometimes 18 18 8 16 10Frequently 20 18 20 10 13

Table 2: Long-Term Food Hardship in Households Following Arrest

Source: Urban Institute survey of families in which parents were arrested in 6 ICE raids in Van Nuys, Postville, New Bedford, Grand Island, Miami, and Arkansas. In The Urban Institute, Children in the Aftermath of Immigration Enforcement (February 2010).

State immigration laws and poverty

Example: Texas 2006

No. Undocumented immigrants contribute more to the U.S. economy than they take out in public assistance.

Are undocumented immigrants a drain on scarce American resources in the form of public benefits?

$17.7 billion: state GDP loss if its 1.4 million undocumented residents suddenly disappeared

$424.7 million: difference between what undocumented residents brought into the state in taxes and what took out in services that year.

State immigration laws and poverty

Hispanics 26%; African Americans 27%; whites 9.9%.

Immigrant communities have among the highest poverty rates in the country and yet are eligible for – and use – very small amounts of public assistance.

55% of children in mixed-status families

86% of children nationally

Example: food stamps

Source: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program Guidance on Non-Citizen Eligibility (June 2011)

What services will your clients, both documented and undocumented, need more of?

• powers of attorney and other forms;

• school documents for foreign countries;

• passports for children;

• more than ½ of Urban Institute families received food, rental/ utility aid, cash from churches

• access to individuals in detention

• detention/deportation planning and response

• protection from notarios

What services will your clients, both documented and undocumented, need more of?

• help on a daily basis getting access to:

• health care and benefits;

• housing and utilities;

• public schools;

• voter registration and ID cards

• marriage certificates and driver’s licenses;

What can you do about it?

• Get to know how exactly your local law enforcement collaborates with ICE.

• Document stories.

• Get to know what bills your city or county council and state legislatures are considering.

• Start or fund an immigration program!

• Pass evidence of rights violations to CLINIC

What can you do about it?

• Engage your local legislators and council members

• Form local advocacy coalitions

• Then work with them to draft and introduce pro-immigrant bills

• Request to meet with them to express your concerns

• Tell them how their constituents are impacted by these bills

• What unique perspective would you bring to the table?

• Write and deliver testimony at hearings

• Example: PACC, Arch. Philly, and CLINIC in Harrisburg

• Develop relationships with a few legislators who are very sympathetic and interested

What can you do about it?

• Where do we go for talking points and messaging that reflects our Catholic perspective?

• Get to know the local media and frame your message

• CLINIC and USCCB

• Determine what it is you want to say and how you want to say it

• Draft a policy statement, no more than one page, something you can readily give to local media if they ask for comment

• Get your message out there• Twitter, Facebook, op-eds and letters to editor

• Example: Archdiocese of Philadelphia hosts Twitter chat

What can you do about it?

• Plan parish-based advocacy events

• Engage your local law enforcement

• Example: Pray for the DREAM!

• Example: HICA and Catholic groups in AL do interfaith vigil

• Example: Catholic Charities in the Archdiocese of Jackson, MS

• Example: St. Charles Borromeo, Arlington, VA

Some truths about immigration enforcement

• The federal government is deporting more people than ever in our nation’s history.

• Unlawful border crossings are way down. But the number of kids caught at the border is increasing.

• State immigration enforcement ends up deporting significant numbers of people with no criminal record whatsoever or only traffic offenses.

• Civil rights violations by police happen. The Departments of Justice and Homeland Security inadequately control or address this problem.

• Immigration enforcement destroys families, hitting children hardest.

• Will recent federal actions help?

Questions for the future

• prosecutorial discretion

• mandating Secure Communities

• reviewing 300,000 pending removal cases

• Task Force on Secure Communities report

Questions?

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