APRIL 1 – PRINTER FRIEINDLY – Here’s more on the policies we’ll be pushing via the budget process: 

These 3 provisions have broad public support, and extend critical protections to all immigrants.

ALL are from the Safe Communities Act–and are endorsed by the two MA police chief associations.

ALL comply with federal law. Federal law prohibits limiting communications between local and federal agencies about immigration status. It does not require local law enforcement to collect this information.

PRES. Trump is increasing ICE’s power, and their indiscriminate, racist, dragnet is deporting mothers, fathers, workers, students, friends, neighbors, and family, sowing terror and fear in our communities.

Massachusetts legislators literally have the power to provide some guarantees of community safety for all of us. But they have not.

Rank and file legislators will tell you all kinds of juicy insider tales as to why…. “it is Leadership…”  “it is the Governor…” “it is colleagues from “more conservative districts”…” …

Sorry, no. Our elected legislators are there to serve justice and make laws. Not to please Leadership or pre-concede to racism coming from the corner office or defer to reactionary electoral fears.

And here’s an open secret: “Leadership”’s power is responsive to the members (legislators, rank and file). If members make noise, Leadership will listen.

Legislators have power–but they have to use it. They have to get loud and insistent.

We have power–but we have to use it. We have to get loud and insist: “Legislators–use your power.”

If they do not, it may be time to make what John Lewis calls “good trouble.”  Nothing difficult was ever achieved without it.

More info on the provisions above:

1. The current climate makes immigrants vulnerable to exploitation and crime –
   domestic violence, wage theft, housing code violations, and other offenses go unreported because of fears that contact with police will lead to deportation and separation from family members, especially children.
2. Costly 287g agreements, a cornerstone of Trump’s expansive deportation project,
   co-opt public safety resources for immigration enforcement, and undermine  community confidence in law enforcement.
3. Noncitizens are often unaware that they have these rights, which can have dire consequences.
   “Miranda” warnings are not constitutionally required to be given for civil immigration violations. Our jails are a major entry point into the deportation pipeline. Without these protections, people charged with minor offenses lose the right to challenge their deportation.

PRIOR UPDATES: 

MARCH 22 – We were hopeful–with all of the activism and energy and commitment from the Massachusetts electorate to resist the Trump Agenda and PROTECT our communities most vulnerable to its racist agenda–that Beacon Hill would rouse from its normal phlegmatic state. 

That the call of history and doing the right thing in response would be the massive catalyst such a timid body would need. 

Instead, we have gotten more of the same from Beacon Hill: delays, pretenses of support, and…nothing. 

And so, the Safe Communities Act, as legislation, has run out of steam… Not because of any parliamentary reason or time–but simply because of political cowardice by the Massachusetts legislature, with a super majority of Democratic members who say they want to “resist”. 

But this was never about one single piece of legislation; it is about justice.

And we will keep organizing for results —real, actual, helpful policy changes–thru every means.

And this is why, though the legislation may be “dead” (not really, but you’ll hear legislators say so; it’s easier than saying”we do not have political courage”)–we are not done.

We are gearing up to pass key provisions of the SCA legislation through the budget process.

Look for more from our organizing team soon (is your immigration reform point person plugged in? do so here!) on how you can engage your teams to make this happen (hint: overwhelming politcal pressure needed!).

By Kyle Reilly

The Massachusetts Fiscal Alliance, a group that allegedly focuses on “fiscal responsibility” that has had xenophobia at its core from the start, has been targeting legislative supporters of the Safe Communities Act with mailers fear-mongering about undocumented immigrants. On the mailers, they quote a statistic from the ironically named white supremacist group FAIR: “Illegal Immigration costs Massachusetts taxpayers $1.8 Billion Annually.”  As should come as no surprise, there are major problems with both the messenger and the message.  

First, FAIR’s ties to white supremacist ideologies are well-documented. They are not a research center by any definition, and their obvious bias makes any analysis of theirs suspect.

The credibility problem isn’t just about who’s saying it, though. The numbers are also pure nonsense.  

The figure trumpeted by FAIR and Mass Fiscal is based on assumptions and very little empirical data. They don’t consider any of the economic benefits from immigrants whether in or out of status, nor the tremendous cost of removal. FAIR starts by inflating the number of undocumented immigrants by doing things like counting everyone in the US under TPS as undocumented (they are not). All together, this inflates the number by 1.5 million people as compared to the Pew Research Center.  

Over half of the tax burden assigned to education and healthcare are expenses related to the children of undocumented immigrants, approximately three-quarters of whom are native-born citizens of the US (and therefore: not undocumented). (As anyone who was ever a parent—or a child–would know, all children are expensive). FAIR doesn’t count the children born to native-born Americans as a tax burden, because they grow up, join the workforce, and contribute to taxes, off-setting their expense. No such assumptions are made about the children of undocumented immigrants even though they are contributing members of society.  

FAIR’s assumptions lack a data-driven consistency, consistent only in manipulating the assumptions to result in inflated cost conclusions (which is exactly the kind of fakenewsery the right consistently claims of the left). For example: when assessing educational costs, FAIR assumes that ALL children in a family with an undocumented parent live in low-income homes and go to low-income schools, an assumption that on paper increases the alleged costs. And yet, elsewhere, FAIR uses high-income assumptions in other parts of the study: their analysis goes out of the way to minimize their contributions by undocumented members of our economy and maximize their cost.   

There is a wealth of empirical research, on the other hand, that comes to the complete opposite conclusion of groups like Mass Fiscal and FAIR: that immigrants (undocumented or otherwise) and safe community policies both have positive impacts on their communities.  

The Mass Fiscal junk data is designed only to stir up nativist outrage and scare legislators. And Governor Baker and the State House would be wise to listen to facts and reason, not junk data assembled by hate groups with a white supremacist agenda.

Mass Fiscal is sending out postcards to voters designed to mislead and provoke a backlash against the Safe Communities Act. We were delighted to receive Rep. Calter’s comprehensive and emailed response to his constituents.

Bravo and thank you Rep. Calter, for being a strong advocate for due process, keeping our communities SAFE, and rejecting xenophobic fear tactics. 

The email is quoted in full below: 

As you may be aware, Mass Fiscal Alliance sent out post cards to residents that misrepresents the substantive elements of House Bill 3269, The Safe Communities Act. Because Mass Fiscal Alliance has a total disregard for truths that do not support its radical political agenda, I now need to set the record straight.

The legislation I co-sponsored does not even address the issue of Sanctuary Cities. It is an act that ensures that our Massachusetts tax dollars are devoted to protecting our communities and not to the enforcement of Federal immigration laws that fall under the sole authority of ICE(Immigration and Customs Enforcement). 

To learn more about what The Safe Communities Act does and does not do, please read below:

On January 23, 2017, the Trump administration introduced an aggressive immigration enforcement agenda that relies on the conscription of state and local law enforcement and facilities to identify and detain immigrants. This agenda is already having far-reaching consequences in our communities, and raises major public safety, public health, economic and civil rights concerns. A federal court has already ruled that such coercion is unconstitutional because-among other things-it violates the 10th amendment prohibition on commandeering state resources for federal purposes. 

It is no coincidence that The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court was the first in the nation to find that state laws don’t allow us to hold a person on an ICE detainer; doing so violates Massachusetts statute.

Massachusetts has often led the nation in advancing due process and civil rights. Any attempt to take away those rights and revert to a system that supports politically-motivated anti-immigrant policies would be a huge step in the wrong direction. The values that make our Commonwealth a great and welcoming place to live point us toward progress, not retreat.  

In response to President Trump’s unfunded executive orders on immigration, I was pleased to co-sponsor H3269, THE SAFE COMMUNITIES ACT. This legislation if enacted, would ensure that Massachusetts tax dollars are devoted to protecting our communities, not enforcing federal immigration laws, which are the responsibility of Immigration and Customs enforcement (ICE). Over 400 localities, including California, Connecticut, Illinois and Rhode Island, and eight MA cities have similar policies. 

Recently, Mass Fiscal Alliance sent out post cards targeting co-sponsors of The Safe Communities Act. Those post cards are now showing up in mailboxes across the State.

You may remember MassFiscal Alliance as the Boston-based, dark money SuperPAC that sent numerous attack mailers in the last election cycles. This group targets Democrats around the state and has made distorted claims against many officials (for example, concocting a story in 2014 that legislators had voted to prioritize services for illegal immigrants over veterans [Ed. Note: such a vote is #FakeNews]) .  

The citizens of the 12th Plymouth district have always been more interested in facts, as opposed to politically motivated rhetoric. You will hear from Mass Fiscal Alliance often in the upcoming election cycle.

I ask only that you understand their political motives and research their claims.

Please compare the claims made in their recent mailings to the substantive elements of the Safe Communities Act, to which I am a co-sponsor. 

The Safe Communities Act : What it DOES & Does Not Do 

1. It DOES prohibit the use of state databases or records for enforcement of any federal registry program based on religion or other protected characteristics. 
2. It DOES limit state and local agencies’ involvement with the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) by barring them from arresting or detaining a person solely for federal immigration enforcement purposes, or participating in inquiries, investigations or raids based solely on immigration status. When police become ICE agents, immigrant victims and witnesses of crime are afraid to call police, which makes us all less safe.
3. It DOES prohibit collaboration agreements between the U.S. Department of Homeland Security(DHS) and Massachusetts law enforcement agencies that deputize state and local officers as immigration agents and co-opt state and local resources for federal purposes, but without any reimbursement of costs.
4. It DOES ensure basic due process rights for immigrants detained in state and local and state correctional facilities, such as to be informed, in a language they understand, that they have a right to have their lawyer present for any interview by ICE agents. 

What The Safe Communities Act DOES NOT Do:

1. It DOES NOT stop police from investigating crimes or prosecuting anyone who commits a crime. On the contrary, it encourages immigrant witnesses and victims of crime to cooperate with police investigations, and ensures that police resources are not diverted from fighting crime.
2. It DOES NOT stop police from collaborating with federal agencies, including ICE, as part of criminal investigations, such as joint operations to stop gangs or drug traffickers. 
3. It DOES NOT keep ICE from getting information about people who are arrested-by default, all booking information is shared with numerous federal authorities, including the FBI and ICE, as required by federal law. 
4. It DOES NOT keep ICE from conducting investigations, raids or arrests in Massachusetts communities, or interfere with those activities. 
5. It DOES NOT jeopardize any community’s federal funding, because the bill is carefully tailored to comply with all relevant federal laws. Indeed, although the bill was drafted well before U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions defined what constitutes a “sanctuary” jurisdiction, the provisions of the bill fall squarely outside that definition.
6. It DOES NOT declare Massachusetts as a “Sanctuary State”.

While I am always willing to debate issues of public policy, we should not have to debate facts.

Mass Fiscal Alliance has no regard for the truth and is only interested in supporting its own idealogical agenda. That is the case with the mailing regarding The Safe Communities Act.

Because Massachusetts and local governments cannot afford another unfunded federal mandate, hundreds of organizations have endorsed The Safe Communities Act, including the League of Women Voters and several labor unions.  

Thank you to those who have called seeking clarification and to those who have taken the time to read this piece.If you wish to discuss this on any other policy matter, I invite you to visit my district office or call me. 

Click through for a review of the historic SJC Lunn decision, Gov. Baker’s proposal to overturn it, Safe Communities Act and the foot dragging of Massachusetts Democrats.

By Heather Busk, Progressive Watertown

“When Mexico sends its people, it’s not sending its best…They’re bringing drugs, they’re bringing crime. They’re rapists. And some, I assume, are good people.”

That is a direct quote from our current President. In his dark view of the world, the United States is under assault by a horde of dangerous immigrants unleashing a wave of violence against hapless citizens. There’s only one tiny problem with this view-it’s completely false.

It should come as no surprise to see once again that Trump and his henchmen live in an alternate reality.

Contrary to Trump’s hysterical fever dreams, immigrants (undocumented or otherwise) do not commit violent crimes any more than other groups. This deserves reiteration, because our beliefs have been warped by decades of television and movies pushing this false narrative. If immigrants are so much more dangerous, why did violent crime decline by 34% from 1994 to 2005, while the foreign born population increased by 71%? The national crime rate has dropped sharply over the last few decades, including in areas where the number of undocumented immigrants grew significantly. Areas with a larger immigrant population (including undocumented) have lower crime rates, after controlling for other factors. They have incarceration rates below native born Americans. So whatever our immigration policy is, it should reflect the fact that the undocumented are not responsible for this nonexistent crime wave.

This rhetoric about criminals serves as a distraction from the large number of people without criminal records who have also been deported. Maribel Trujillo, a mother of four US citizen children, a business owner who has lived in the US for 15 years, was deported in April. In Lawrence, five were arrested when they appeared for scheduled meetings with USCIS, some of which were to begin the green card process. None of the people in these examples had a criminal record, and this is not unusual. The number of deportees without criminal records has more than doubled during Trump’s time in office, to more than 10,800 so far. By the end of Obama’s term, the official deportation policy was “Felons, not families” yet even under this policy, many of those deported had no criminal record. Far from being a champion of the undocumented, Obama oversaw the deportation of 2.4 million people, more than any previous president. Trump wants to go even further, and his administration’s policies expand the deportation priority from criminals to potentially anyone.

In this cold discussion of “immigration enforcement,” we must never forget the human face of it–families broken apart. To keep families whole, and to make sure that the job of the police is to keep us safe, not deport our neighbors, Massachusetts should become a sanctuary state. 

The Safe Communities Act would:

• Prevent state and local government from using their resources to aid in the enforcement of immigration law. It does allow the use of houses of corrections to hold people in ICE custody, provided the use is reimbursed. This will allow potential deportees to remain closer to home, closer to their families and legal aid. Detainees who are sent to remote locations are on average held months longer before deportation or release.
• Prohibits law enforcement from asking about someone’s immigration status, except as required by law or as necessary to investigate a crime.
• Prohibits law enforcement agencies or the RMV from contributing information to federal attempts to register people on the basis of race, gender, sexual orientation, religion, or national or ethnic origin. In other words, we won’t help make the infamous Muslim registry.
• Prohibits law enforcement from detaining or arresting anyone solely for immigration purposes, and prohibits any state or local personnel from acting as immigration agents.
• Prohibits the honoring of detainer requests and requires that the determination of bail ignore the detainer. Detainers are requests for local law enforcement to hold people who have been arrested an extra 48 hours, if they are suspected to be undocumented, giving ICE a chance to come pick them up. To be clear, under the proposed law, an arrested person would not be released early because of immigration status, it would simply stop them from being held past their lawful release time because of a detainer request. This is consistent with how criminal justice works for citizens. Many arrests are made for minor crimes that do not carry a long jail time as punishment, and many charges are dismissed. Furthermore, not everyone arrested is guilty-don’t forget, “innocent until proven guilty.” For those charged with more serious crimes, law enforcement and the courts will, as always, consider the severity of the alleged crime, flight risk, and other factors before deciding whether to release them and how much to charge for bail. So people who likely pose a danger to the public will not be released, just like now. 
• Requires that the person in local custody must give consent for a DHS agent to interview them. Requires that they be informed of their rights if an interview is requested. (It’s hard to exercise your rights if you don’t know what they are). If they ask for an attorney, no interview may take place without the attorney’s presence.

Proponents of strict immigration enforcement often argue that breaking immigration law is breaking the law, and lawbreakers should be prosecuted. But step back a second. Do we hold people in prison for months for jaywalking? No. That’s breaking the law too, so why not? Because we follow the principle of “the punishment should fit the crime.” Along those lines, the punishment for jaywalking is typically a small fine. To address lawbreaking, we have a range of possible responses, including prison, probation, rehabilitation programs, or fines. For those who break immigration law, the choices don’t have to be either deport or do nothing, and as a society we need to have a conversation about what the appropriate policy is.

Being undocumented simply means you are in the country without permission. (Far from the dramatic border crossing we may envision from movies, most undocumented entered the country legally but overstayed their visas. The largest group of those who overstay are Canadians). For those who have been here for a long while, deportation means the disruption of an entire life–losing a job, losing a home, and being separated from family. To me, that seems like far too harsh of a punishment for failing to file paperwork.

The undocumented may not be citizens, but that does not mean they should have no civil rights protections–human rights do not depend on where you were born or where you live. They aren’t given as many protections in immigration proceedings, but the courts have repeatedly affirmed that they at least have a right to due process.

To avoid levying a punishment much more severe than the crime warrants, the individual circumstances of each potential deportee should be considered. If they have strong ties to the US such as a spouse or children who are US citizens or permanent residents, deportation should not be done lightly. In the case of individuals who have committed crimes, that means looking at the severity of their crime to decide whether it warrants deportation and whether their expulsion would have a large disruptive effect on the local community. (Is it really better for society if children lose their parents for a minor non-violent crime?) Now compare this nuanced approach, which addresses our border security and public safety needs without neglecting civil rights, to what Trump wants to do.

During his campaign, Trump swore to deport all 11 or so million undocumented immigrants. Later on, he relented and promised to deport “only” the two or three million that he believes are criminals (although it’s disputed if there are that many with a criminal record, and many of those have a record for a minor crime), but his actions as President have hewed closer to his original position.

He may be a pathological liar, but so far he really does seem to be trying to keep many of his campaign promises. To this end, he has signed a few executive orders on immigration.  Among other things, he calls for the building of the notorious wall along the border, the building and staffing of detention centers, the hiring of 5000 more border patrol agents, and he instructs the attorney general to have federal prosecutors prioritize offenses somehow connected to the border (diverting resources away from other pressing concerns). More directly relevant to Massachusetts, he gets local jurisdictions tangled up in enforcing federal immigration laws by calling for the cooperation of state and local governments in enforcing those laws, deputizing local and state law enforcement to act as immigration agents, expanding who is considered a priority for deportation, and ordering that federal funding be cut off to sanctuary jurisdictions.

We don’t have to guess how this will turn out–these policies have been tried before. Essentially, he is reinstating and reinvigorating two programs that have a troubled history of civil rights abuses, namely Secure Communities and 287(g) agreements.

Secure Communities was established under Bush in 2008 and was repealed by Obama in 2014 after strong criticism of the program. Under it, when someone was arrested, their fingerprints were sent to ICE to do an immigration check. If the fingerprints matched someone ICE believed to be deportable, they would issue a detainer request, asking that law enforcement hold the person for up to 48 hours past their scheduled release so that ICE could have time to pick them up. It sounds innocuous, unless you delve into the results as revealed by a study of the program from 2008 to 2011. 

First of all, families were broken apart. Through 2011, 83,000 families with US citizens were affected by the program, and 39% of those deported had citizens in their family.

The fraction of people deported with no criminal record or with arrests for a minor crime grew significantly when Secure Communities was in force: 45% had committed serious crimes, but 29% were accused of minor offenses, especially traffic violations, and 26% had no convictions. This means that more than half had a history of only minor offenses or no crime at all. In Massachusetts it was worse–in 2013, 55% had no criminal record whatsoever. ICE triumphantly pointed to the growing fraction of “criminal aliens” it deported under Secure Communities, but most of that increase was due to an increasing proportion of people deported for breaking immigration or traffic related laws.

This suggests that when ICE had to expend its own resources to track down undocumented immigrants, actual threats to society were prioritized. But when local law enforcement had done the work for them, they jumped at the opportunity to deport anyone, even if that person was not dangerous. Safe Communities, in contrast, will help keep the focus on dangerous criminals. 

Under Trump’s executive order, once again peaceful, productive members of society are being indiscriminately deported. We must protect our neighbors. By refusing to cooperate at the local level, we will reduce the number of people deported, and lower the number of families broken apart. 

Secure Communities has a poor record on respecting due process. Potential deportees, in principle, are typically supposed to get a hearing where a judge will determine their fate. They are also allowed a lawyer, although the government will not pay for it. We have a perverse system where because breaking immigration law is considered a civil rather than a criminal offense, there is no right to a lawyer, even though they are treated very much like criminals.

Under Secure Communities, only about half even got a hearing and of those only a quarter had a lawyer (compared to 41% in other immigration court proceedings). For many, this is essentially conviction for a crime without the oversight of a judge and without legal representation.

Without a lawyer, they are far more likely to be deported. Without legal counsel, some may not realize that they have a way to stay in the country, for instance through claiming asylum or if they have family who are US citizens or permanent residents. Instead, they may be pressured to voluntarily remove themselves and bypass the hearing process. It’s easy to be intimidated when you’re locked up, possibly hundreds of miles from your family, and without anyone there to give you advice except your jailers. Safe Communities will ensure that fewer people are chewed up by this extrajudicial system.

Even more egregiously, the detainers are issued for people who are suspected of being deportable, and ICE routinely gets it wrong. According to one estimate, in 2011, 1-2% of Secure Communities detainers were against US citizens. Over a few years, this amounted to approximately 3,600 citizens illegally held. Permanent residents and visa holders also have protections against arbitrary detention and deportation. Holding citizens and other legal residents like this amounts to punishment without conviction for a crime.

What’s more, local jurisdictions have been held financially liable for improperly holding people under Secure Communities, for settlements of tens of thousands of dollars. The federal government has not reimbursed them for this cost. An Oregon judge ruled that a detainer does not give local jurisdictions probable cause to hold someone. It does not have the same legal force as a warrant, which has to be reviewed by a judge. Safe Communities would protect municipalities from being sued for obeying Trump’s order.

Under 287(g), local jurisdictions enter into agreements to take on some immigration enforcement duties. In the jail-based version, it expands Secure Communities by allowing local law enforcement to determine the immigration status of those they arrest rather than waiting for a request from DHS. In Massachusetts, the Bristol and Plymouth County Sheriff’s Offices and the Department of Corrections have entered into such agreements. Trump wants to return to a task-force model, where law enforcement could act as immigration agents out in the community as well. This model was previously discontinued because it was an inefficient use of resources and encouraged racial profiling, with Latinos over-represented among those arrested.

In addition, one key principle of good policing is that the police and the communities they serve should trust each other. The police should be seen as the ones who keep us safe, not our adversaries. If they take on the duties of immigration officers, this trust will be undermined, as the undocumented will be be afraid to go to the police for fear of being deported. Information they have about crimes will go unshared. Victims will decline to report the crimes against them, and criminals will continue to walk free. This obsession with immigrants distracts from addressing the actual causes of crime and will make us less safe, not more. Indeed, there is some evidence that sanctuary jurisdictions are safer than comparable non-sanctuary jurisdictions. 

Federal immigration law is the law of that land, but there is no reason that local police should be required to help. There are many federal laws that local and state police do not work to enforce, instead leaving it to federal law enforcement. Why should immigration law be any different? The Department of Homeland Security, with a budget far greater than anything at the local level, can do its own work instead of robbing badly needed resources from local authorities. Communities that have entered into 287(g) agreements have faced financial hardship because of the added immigration duties, and the added cost has come without improved public safety.

Under Safe Communities, law enforcement will continue focusing on dangerous criminals, and continue to leave immigration law enforcement to federal authorities.

Some have expressed fear about becoming a sanctuary state because of Trump’s threats to cut off federal funding in retaliation, in a transparent attempt to bully us into compliance. There is some good news on this front. It is unclear if he can legally do this, and recently some courts have ruled that he cannot, so it may be an empty threat.

Beyond this, do we want to be complicit in something we know is wrong? Do we want to help ICE break apart families and ruin lives? There is little we can do to stop federal agents from deporting people, but at least we can refuse to help. Even federal resources are limited, and by refusing to help, we can reduce the number of people who are affected, and can keep the focus on deporting dangerous criminals.

People who come here illegally not to hurt anyone, but to build a better life for themselves and their families should not be hounded as dangerous criminals for doing so. At the minimum, they should have some kind of due process protections before deportation. Draconian measures such as Trump’s planned mass deportations will tear at the very fabric of our society. They cannot not be done without egregiously violating civil rights, damaging the economy, ripping families apart, and weakening the protections that are so vital to a democracy.

Trump wants to go farther than deporting dangerous criminals: his two influential advisers who wrote the orders, Stephen Miller and Stephen Bannon, have publicly revealed that they want all immigration to this country curtailed.

Trump has a history of seeing how far he can go, of testing the reaction to his policy proposals, and then backing off to something a little more moderate when there was too strong of a backlash. During his campaign, he repeatedly made extreme policy suggestions, and when too many people got angry, he denied ever saying anything so outrageous, instead blaming the “lying media” for making up stories (despite the documented evidence to the contrary). If we give in on this, he will likely keep coming back with ever more extreme policies. It is better to resist now, rather than wait until his policies are even harsher. So far Trump has focused on terrorism and illegal immigration, but if he gets the chance he will go after legal immigrants as well. Let’s make him afraid to try.