-- by Isabel Skilton, CAIR Coalition Summer Intern
Emigration is a courageous act. However, it is easy to forget the heavy sacrifices and obstacles low-income immigrants endure in the hopes of building a better future for themselves and their families in the United States. Ironically, it is not distance that separates our understanding of the struggle – it is often ignorance.
The impacts of the bureaucratic-dominated monster of an immigration system and the daily challenges immigrants face are largely ignored by the American people. They are swept under the anti-immigrant and racist rhetoric of those like Donald Trump, locked behind the doors of Immigration and Custom Enforcement (ICE) detention centers, shelved on the archives of failed policies which focus more on party power than immigrant lives.
I spent this summer in and out of ICE detention centers with the Capital Area Immigrants’ Rights (CAIR) Coalition. During these past few months I have witnessed the courage of both adults and children alike who have given up everything to escape persecution, abuse, and violence in the hopes of stability and peace in the U.S. only to be turned away at our door step. Coming face to face with the injustice of the U.S. immigration system has demonstrated the dire necessity to bring the reality of the U.S. immigrant “out of the shadows” and into the forefront of national attention. However, throughout the course of the summer, Congress has decided to instead use tragedy in order to further exclude immigrants and penalize jurisdictions and policies which strive to be fair and welcoming.
On July 1st Kathryn Steinle was fatally shot in San Francisco by Juan Francisco Lopez Sanchez, an unauthorized immigrant who had been deported from the United States five times and has since been described as a career criminal. In the weeks following, many in Congress have used the tragic death of Ms. Steinle to not only condemn the recently enacted Department of Homeland Security Priority Enforcement Program (PEP), but also to penalize “sanctuary cities,” such as San Francisco, for refusing to uphold harsh and unfair immigration enforcement.
In part due to the tragic death of Ms. Steinle and the legal debate surrounding the expansion of deferred action programs, the recent reforms in DHS immigration enforcement priorities have only just received significant attention from both Congress and the media. In November 2014, DHS enacted two major policy changes to immigration enforcement. The first was the introduction of PEP as a replacement for the controversial Secure Communities Program. This came as a reaction to the harsh enforcement policies of Secure Communities which had driven many jurisdictions through the U.S. to pass legislation barring mandatory cooperation with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). The second policy shift was the more focused categorization of “enforcement priorities” to those who have been convicted of a crime or are considered a risk to public safety.
Seven months later – directly following the death of Ms. Steinle – Congress held three hearings to address hardline conservative concerns with the policies of jurisdictions that do not comply with ICE. The most dramatic of the hearings titled “Oversight on the Administration’s Misdirected Immigration Enforcement Policies” exhibited emotional testimonials from the family members of victims who had lost their lives at the hands of undocumented immigrants. The debate during all three hearings ranged in topics from the lack of cooperation between ICE and local authorities, the non-adherence to mandatory ICE detainers (which have been ruled to be unconstitutional), and legislation restricting forgiving immigration enforcement policies.
Two pieces of legislation were introduced in direct reaction to the tragedy in San Francisco. The first, “Enforce the Law for Sanctuary Cities Act” (H.R. 3009) was rebranded by immigrant advocates as the “Donald Trump Act.” H.R. 3009 passed the House by a 241-149 majority, limiting federal funding for non-ICE compliant cities and forcing local authorities to cooperate with ICE mandatory detainer policies. The second piece of legislation, “Kate’s Law,” aims to impose a mandatory five-year minimum prison sentences for deportees caught re-entering the country. The White House has promised to veto both bills, however these pieces of legislation resemble the largely unpopular and unjust policies of Secure Communities.
Secure Communities mandated local law enforcement agencies to collaborate closely with ICE which, according to a recent Center for American Progress column, led to the following consequences: fear of the police, a lack of community trust, and a decline in reported crime. The current “one-size-fits-all” policies under PEP still struggle to determine the detention and deportation of noncitizens in a comprehensive manner. However, a recent Migration Policy Institute report demonstrates that in comparison to Secure Communities, PEP could offer a degree of protection to the vast majority, 87 percent, of unauthorized immigrants now residing in the United States by narrowing the focus of the enforcement priorities.
An even more chilling consequence following Ms. Steinle’s death is the villainization of the unauthorized immigrant. An op-ed released by the New York Times asserts that Mr. Lopez Sanchez “…has become the dark-skinned face of the Mexican killers that Donald Trump…has been warning the nation about.” Anti-immigrant advocates have twisted the cruel, illogical, and deplorable actions of Mr. Lopez Sanchez to incriminate the 11 million unauthorized immigrants in the United States who came to this country to make a better life for themselves and their family. Congressman Luis Gutierrez (D-Illinois) attempted to correct this mischaracterization by rebranding Lopez Sanchez as a “foreigner,” stating in a House Judiciary Committee Hearing: “This man is not an immigrant. Immigrants come here to work hard, sweat and toil…This man is a foreigner, who came here to cause damage.”
However, not every immigrant who commits a crime deserves to be deported. Here at the Capital Area Immigrants’ Rights (CAIR) Coalition, we work with many immigrants who have undeservedly been assigned the same characterization as Mr. Lopez Sanchez. We provide legal services to many individuals who have criminal convictions but who are not risks to public safety. Often they are family members, active participants in their communities, and long term residents of the United States. When deported, the families these individuals leave behind are forced to survive under compromised circumstances, leading to extreme hardship on their living partner and families.
Take the case of Kenault Lawrence who was deported on the basis of non-violent marijuana-related criminal convictions. Kenault was deported in 2013 when a judge mislabeled his two minor 2009 marijuana convictions as “drug trafficking aggravated felonies.” This logic was undermined just a few months later by a U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Moncrieffe v. Holder which argued that “characterize[ing] a low level-drug offense as ‘illicit trafficking in a controlled substance,’ and thus an ‘aggravated felony’…defies the ‘commonsense conception’ of these terms.” Kenault is a clear example of how ICE enforcement priorities do not view cases in a holistic manner and have neglected to take into account all aspects of his situation – including the time he has lived in the U.S., his connection to his community, and the support he provides to his family.
Kathryn Steinle’s death is undoubtedly a tragedy – but the legislation being offered by Congress and the anti-immigrant retaliation offers more problems than solutions. This backlash will result in the unjust penalization of millions of immigrant families and will drive our nation further from the comprehensive immigration reform needed to fairly protect those who have worked so hard to make the United States their home.
