State Immigration Enforcement, Human Dignity and Poverty: What Should I Know? What Can I Do?

1. State Immigration Enforcement, Human Dignity and Poverty: What Should I Know? What Can I Do? Karen Siciliano Lucas, CLINIC Sept. 20, 2011

2. What does state immigration enforcement look like? Federal/state partnerships (ICE ACCESS) State legislation and local ordinances

3. What does state immigration enforcement look like? Federal/state partnerships (ICE ACCESS) • Secure Communities • Criminal Alien Program • 287(g) Agreements • other agreements

4. 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.

5. 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

6. 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

7. What does state immigration enforcement look like? • Restricting access to public benefits, including education • Sanctioning employers who hire unauthorized workers State legislation • 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….

8. What does state immigration enforcement look like? • “attrition through enforcement” • “reasonable suspicion” State police get wide powers: • 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….

9. 2011 State Legislative Session Summary • States are now free to pass even more employer sanctions bills (17 are already in place) • 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

10. 2011 State Legislative Session Summary Source: Turning the Tide Campaign

11. What happens to families affected by detention and deportation? 5.5 million children live in the U.S. with at least one undocumented parent • 75% 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)

12. What happens to families affected by detention and deportation? • family income security decreases without wage earner children may be placed in the care of the state • children’s psychological and developmental effects • parents may lose parental rights without notice • NO right to counsel • NO centralized system for tracking detainees locally • NO consistent policy for CPS to access detained parents • ICE discretion inconsistently applied

13. What happens to families affected by detention and deportation? 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).

14. What happens to families affected by detention and deportation? 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).

15. State immigration laws and poverty • Are undocumented immigrants a drain on scarce American resources in the form of public benefits? No. Undocumented immigrants contribute more to the U.S. economy than they take out in public assistance. Example: Texas 2006 $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.

16. State immigration laws and poverty Immigrant communities have among the highest poverty rates in the country and yet are eligible for – and use – very small amounts of public assistance. Hispanics 26%; African Americans 27%; whites 9.9%. Example: food stamps 55% of children in mixed-status families 86% of children nationally Source: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program Guidance on Non-Citizen Eligibility (June 2011)

17. What services will your clients, both documented and undocumented, need more of? • detention/deportation planning and response • passports for children; • school documents for foreign countries; • powers of attorney and other forms; • access to individuals in detention • more than ½ of Urban Institute families received food, rental/ utility aid, cash from churches

18. What services will your clients, both documented and undocumented, need more of? • help on a daily basis getting access to: • public schools; protection from notarios • housing and utilities; • health care and benefits; • marriage certificates and driver’s licenses; • voter registration and ID cards

19. What can you do about it? • Start or fund an immigration program! • Get to know how exactly your local law enforcement collaborates with ICE. • Get to know what bills your city or county council and state legislatures are considering. • Document stories. • Pass evidence of rights violations to CLINIC

20. What can you do about it? • Form local advocacy coalitions • What unique perspective would you bring to the table? • Engage your local legislators and council members • Request to meet with them to express your concerns • Tell them how their constituents are impacted by these bills • 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 • Then work with them to draft and introduce pro-immigrant bills

21. What can you do about it? • Get to know the local media and frame your message • 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 • Where do we go for talking points and messaging that reflects our Catholic perspective? • CLINIC and USCCB • Get your message out there • Twitter, Facebook, op-eds and letters to editor • Example: Archdiocese of Philadelphia hosts Twitter chat

22. What can you do about it? • Engage your local law enforcement • Example: Catholic Charities in the Archdiocese of Jackson, MS • Plan parish-based advocacy events • Example: Pray for the DREAM! • Example: HICA and Catholic groups in AL do interfaith vigil • Example: St. Charles Borromeo, Arlington, VA

23. 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. • Immigration enforcement destroys families, hitting children hardest. • Civil rights violations by police happen. The Departments of Justice and Homeland Security inadequately control or address this problem.

24. Questions for the future Will recent federal actions help? • prosecutorial discretion • mandating Secure Communities • reviewing 300,000 pending removal cases • Task Force on Secure Communities report

25. Questions? twitter.com/cliniclegal facebook.com/cliniclegal 415 Michigan Ave., NE Suite 200 Washington, DC 20017 202-635-2556 national@cliniclegal.org