Dear Neighbor,
Last week, the Senate passed our version of the PROTECT Act.
The Senate's PROTECT Act holds federal immigration agents legally accountable for civil rights violations, bars local and state police from participating in civil federal immigration enforcement, and prohibits immigration civil arrests at courthouses, houses of worship, schools, hospitals, and childcare facilities.
The House previously passed its own version, initiated by the Black and Latino Caucus. WGBH has a good summary of the differences, which will have to be resolved by a conference committee of three members from each house.
Senators, including me, filed 79 amendments, but only 7 were adopted. In the end, all Democrats and two of the five Republicans - including the minority leader, voted in favor.
ICE in Somerville
One of the first high-profile kidnappings was in my city. Rumeysa Ozturk was taken by masked men in unmarked cars. When asked who they were, they just said, “police.” Her family, friends and attorney didn’t know where she was for over 24 hours. She was held for six weeks in Louisiana, until a federal judge ordered her release. But the Trump administration appealed several rulings. She finally reached a settlement and returned to Turkey. The government never gave a reason for her detention and deportation other than an op ed she co-authored in the Tufts Daily, which was constitutionally protected free speech.
Rumeysa's case was unlike those of many people who are taken, detained and deported. There was video of her taking. She had a lawyer, and support from colleagues at Tufts, from her union, from her community, and several judges. She wasn't deported to a dangerous country where she had no relationships.
Since then, dozens of lower profile people have been taken in our district. In one case, videos show a man being taken while agents were being confronted by residents, including two city councilors. The agents admitted that they were looking for another person. I wrote about ICE in Somerville here.
Many students from immigrant families have just stopped coming to school, and the schools don’t know where they are. Immigrant restaurants in East Somerville have lost many customers because of fear.
Information sharing
Yawu Miller reports in The Flipside that "Immigrant advocates warn that without changes to current regulations, practices and local/federal partnerships in local police departments could continue to allow a continual flow of information that enables ICE agents to target noncriminal immigrants for deportation." You can find the report by Citizens for Juvenile Justice here. Among the remaining problems: police departments take and share fingerprints of people arrested, but not convicted, for misdemeanors, even though the law only requires fingerprinting of those arrested for felonies. The executive director of Muslim Justice League was arrested during a demonstration. The charges were dismissed, but “Fingerprinting is one of the essential ways people get targeted by ICE,” she said.
We are all affected
The effect on those taken and their families and businesses is horrifying enough. Colleges and universities have lost current and future students and faculty, as well as tuition revenue. A Globe op ed points out that students and faculty are becoming more timid. Other people are also more cautious in public discourse. We are losing needed researchers and medical professionals.
As chair of the Committee on Aging and Independence, I am particularly aware of the threat to the whole care continuum, from home care to assisted living to nursing facilities to hospitals. Across the continuum there is a critical worker shortage. Many caregivers are from Haiti, and face a continual threat from the Trump administration. The administration continues to appeal court orders that would stop them from ending Temporary Protected Status (TPS) this summer. It is outrageous that they argue that it’s safe for immigrants to return to Haiti, while the state department says Haiti is not safe to visit. Marco Rubio's team issued a Level 4: Do Not Travel advisory, the highest warning level, for Haiti. But they want to send Haitians there. There are 45,000 Haitians with TPS in Massachusetts, playing important roles in health care and other areas.
NPR has a story about older people advocating to protect Haitians because they value caregivers.
When Rumeysa Ozturk was taken last year, my staff and I started working on a bill to ban law enforcement officers, including ICE, from wearing masks, with some exceptions. I offered that as an amendment to the PROTECT Act, but because it hasn’t yet gone through the committee process, it wasn't adopted. I hope it will have a hearing soon.
Good News
According to WBUR, the Registry of Motor Vehicles will continue not to issue confidential license plates for ICE vehicles for general searches or arrests based on administrative warrants. They will issue them only after ICE certifies they'll only be used in criminal investigations. Confidential plates conceal the identity of the owner or lessee. The federal Justice Department is threatening to sue the state if the RMV doesn't start issuing confidential plates to ICE without conditions.
In upstate New York, over 100 members of the Columbia County Sanctuary Movement peacefully prevented ICE agents from taking four construction workers, even after the agents threatened to break the car window.
Our own Good Trouble Brass Band traveled to Minneapolis for the MinneHonk festival, modeled on our HONK! gathering of activist bands. It was a reminder that the people of Minneapolis responded to ICE's murders of Renee Nicole Good and Alex Pretti with courage and discipline. This probably frustrated ICE, who likely hoped to provoke violent resistance so they could justify even more repression.
Non-Trivia Contest Question: The Trump administration is admitting record low numbers of refugees. In the first six months of this fiscal year, 4,449 refugees were admitted. All but three were from what country?
Extra credit: What country were the other three from?
First person answering correctly wins a choice of
- a book from my office collection or
- a lamium (flowering ground cover with bicolor leaves) plant
Persist!
Pat Jehlen