Immigration Enforcement at the State and Local Levels:

What Should I Know?

Karen Siciliano Lucas, CLINIC

January 12, 2012

What are states doing and why?

The blame game

“Attrition Through Enforcement”

Getting people to “self-deport”

Everyone is an immigration

agent

State legislation:

What does state immigration enforcement look like?

• Criminalizing basic actions to sustain self and family• Criminalizing basic acts of Christian charity

• Taking away legal personhood

And then there’s the actual enforcement….

• Restricting access to public benefits, including education• Sanctioning employers who hire unauthorized workers

• Criminalizing lack of federal registration

State police (and citizens) get wide powers:

What does state immigration enforcement look like?

• 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….

• warrantless arrests on suspicion undocumented • “reasonable suspicion” at traffic stops

• right to sue and obligation to enforce

2011 State Legislative Session Summary

• Still, of the twenty-five (25) states that threatened in 2011 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)

What happened in Alabama? #crisisAL

• families left schools and communities behind

• water and other utility service threatened

• marriage licenses denied

• provision of health services reduced

• custody and adoption proceedings became a dangerous business

• attorneys turned into immigration agents

What happened in Alabama? #crisisAL

• Attorney General Luther Strange: state employees can’t make independent determination of immigration status

• U.S. District Judge Thompson: state cannot check immigration status for mobile homes

• Governor Bentley says must tweak HB 56

The Latest Came from South Carolina

U.S. District Judge Gergel blocked 3 parts:

• Harboring/transporting

• Registration

• “Reasonable Suspicion”

• Self-Harboring/transporting

State Officials are Called Out

Maricopa County, AZ

Judge Thompson, AL

Judge Gergel, SC

Judge Thrash, GA

U.S. Supreme Court

4 parts of AZ’s SB 1070 will be considered:

• “Reasonable Suspicion”

• Registration

• Solicit or Perform Work

• Warrantless Arrest for Deportable Offense

What have we seen in 2012?

• MO: enforcement, status checks in schools

• CA: not enough signatures to get instate tuition on ballot; guest worker ref.

• IN, AZ: new court challenges

• PA: proof of status for public benefits

• CO: instate tuition variation

Two Danger States 2012

Questions?

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