For decades, the federal government has sought to use local law enforcement agencies to enhance its immigration enforcement efforts.
All too often, these agencies have been happy to oblige 鈥� to the detriment of public safety and community building.
Across the South, local and state legislators have handed over our tax dollars to support the federal immigration dragnet, and many city police and county sheriff departments have willingly agreed to spend our tax dollars on federal immigration enforcement. What鈥檚 more, the Trump administration has punished 鈥渟anctuary鈥� or 鈥渨elcoming鈥� cities and counties 鈥� those that have chosen not to entangle themselves in federal immigration law enforcement 鈥� by illegally cutting off federal funding.
The 澳彩开奖 is committed to reducing the entanglement of federal immigration enforcement and local law enforcement agencies across the Deep South.
Our current efforts include litigating against harmful and racist laws like聽Florida鈥檚 SB 168, which requires local law enforcement agencies across the state to use their 鈥渂est efforts鈥� to support the enforcement of federal immigration law.
We鈥檝e called out the expansion of entanglement programs like聽basic ordering agreements聽and the Warrant Service Officer program, in which local law enforcement agencies keep people in jail after their criminal cases have ended, to give U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) the opportunity to pick them up and deport them.
We鈥檝e filed 鈥渇riend-of-the-court鈥� briefs in support of other cases to educate judges about the harmful effects of federal-local immigration entanglement. Through litigation and education, we鈥檝e sought to prevent local agencies from interrogating people about their immigration status and attempting to turn them over to federal immigration authorities. 聽
Since the early 2000s, we鈥檝e been monitoring enforcement trends in the region and fighting for people who are caught in the deportation machine. We鈥檝e聽fought for immigrant workers聽threatened with deportation after standing up for their workplace rights. We鈥檝e defeated vicious anti-immigrant laws in聽Alabama听补苍诲听Georgia. And we鈥檝e been there to聽hold law enforcement accountable聽when the police racially profiled a Latinx man in the Atlanta suburbs and beat him up.
We鈥檝e also been working with community groups to educate local and county governments about the importance of collecting accurate demographic data during traffic stops to identify potential racial, ethnic and national origin disparities in policing.
Local law enforcement鈥檚 entanglement with ICE and U.S. Customs and Border Protection leaves us all less safe. Without a basic level of trust between law enforcement agencies and the communities they are meant to serve, people will not step forward to report crime and communities will become even more susceptible to abuse and exploitation. When police or sheriff鈥檚 departments funnel people to federal immigration authorities, immigrant communities are afraid to interact with law enforcement 鈥� even when they are the victims of or witnesses to crime.
What鈥檚 more, traffic stops for minor moving violations and racial profiling threaten to funnel individuals into the immigration system and, potentially, deportation proceedings, which is what happened to the聽Martinez family聽in 2017 as they traveled through Mississippi on their way to a vacation. Even U.S. citizens are misidentified and detained in county jails until ICE can pick them up 鈥� as happened to 澳彩开奖 client聽Peter Brown聽in Key West, Florida.
Local communities are under no obligation to turn their police officers into ICE agents. Indeed, basic principles of federalism prevent the federal government from conscripting local communities鈥� resources in that way. Unfortunately, too many communities, and even entire states, are voluntarily spending their own tax dollars to do the federal government鈥檚 work.聽
The federal government鈥檚 reliance on local police and sheriffs to enforce immigration law must be halted, and the safety of immigrant communities must be prioritized.聽The 澳彩开奖 is committed to fighting abuses of immigrants by local police and protecting the rights of Southern cities and counties to welcome immigrants.
Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images
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