So, this meeting was really an informal discussion with lots of back and forth, so hard to blog, but here’s the highlights.
They started off a review of what they have done, 5 meetings, 4 listening sessions and when their next meetings are. April 29th 5 – 7, May 3rd 5 – 7 and May 11th 6 – 8.
MAJOR THEMES AND CONCERNS
Shiva Bidar-Sielaff argues for a short report with specific recommendations to the county board and to other elected bodies. Including urging them to pass comprehensive immigration reform like others have done.
Jon Hawkins says the main themes he heard from the listening sessions are:
1. Fear for safety
2. Feat of authorities
3. Perception vs. the truth about what is going on regarding ICE being called and the lack of distinguishing between uniforms.
Ramona Natera is concerned about limited remedies to fix their immigration status or get a driver’s license. Also concern about lack of awareness about social services and the fact that they are available. Particularly there is an issue with domestic violence and fear of reporting it.
Bidar-Sielaff is concerned about pushing a whole group of people underground and into the shadows. Luis Yudice wants to explore how this impacts the community, beyond just having empathy for people, but if people can’t get driver’s licenses they are more likely to do a hit and run because they fear being arrested and deported.
Natera says it goes beyond that, parents are being asked for ID to pick up kids from after school programs and so they can’t pick them up so the kids can’t participate in the programs. They discuss how this leads to kids being unsupervised and not getting academic support. They talk about how this impact kids and their health, not just those who are undocumented, but even those who are, they give example of one parent who has been picked up three times but are legally here, but it still stresses the kids and puts the parent’s job at risk and they have to pay a lot in attorney fees.
Rabbi Renee Bauer says the biggest issue that came up was the driver’s license issue and they can’t do anything about that. Bidar Sielaff says they can make a recommendation and educate the public and stand up for better state and national policies. Hawkins agrees they can help apply pressure. He has been advocating within the schools and they will write a letter to the state asking them to change their policies.
Yudice says that part of task is education component to it, need to explain how people are harmed by the current policies, he knows what is behind denying access to drivers licenses, to stop illegal immigration, but its not working, and it is doing harm so part of our process is to identify how it is that local everyday citizen is harmed by some of these policies.
Dianne Hesselbein clarifies the report will say why they were formed, what they heard, provide education and recommendations. They discuss that the report can be written for a wider audience, including other local elected officials in the city and on the school board.
Sheriff Dave Mahoney says one of the issues he was struck by was the inability to get insurance if you don’t have a driver’s license. People said if they were in a car accident they would flee because they have no identification and are afraid law enforcement would call ICE. He was also struck by the need to have a social security number to participate in after school activities. He was taken aback by the fear that was testified to about fear of contact with law enforcement and how that would jeopardize their status even tho they knew the larger law enforcement agencies would not ask witnesses and victims of crimes for status – he was surprised to hear it was still an issue based on actual experiences with the law enforcement agencies. [It sounded like he said some officers were not following the policies, but I wasn’t clear.] He also was concerned about potential racial profiling by larger law enforcement agencies, he was disappointed by that.
Hawkins said he was surprised by the fact that people felt the racial profiling was a change, that it didn’t used to be this way and there is an increasing feeling of not being safe due to that.
Melanie Hampton also said that what hit home for her is the change is recent. She wants to show how state and national policy changes have impacted us locally. She says that programs, funding and initiatives from the federal government are different and things like the driver’s license policy are playing out poorly at the local level. She says that civilian law enforcement is not there to treat people like they are an enemy of the state. She wants them to look at the Task Force on Racial Disparities in the Criminal Justice Report and see if they should support those recommendations instead of creating new ones.
Bauer says that they haven’t addressed what brought them together was the issue of reporting to ICE, so we need to address that in some way.
Hawkins suggests that our policies have not changed, but ICE activities have changed, maybe our policies need to be adjusted to address those changes.
Bidar-Seilaff agrees and says that the policies are the same, the resources are greater and the impact is larger. There was a recent Washington Post article that says this clearly. They say they are going after felons and big ticket drug dealers but that is not what is going on, they have quotas in the region and they are picking up others as well to meet the quotas.
THE HEART OF THE MATTER
Sheriff Mahoney says that need to maintain security and safety doesn’t change.
They explore other ways for the sheriff to ID people without contacting ICE. They suggest finger prints (employers, taken when cross boarder, law enforcement). They don’t seem to have access to the first two sources and the third is only good if they have been arrested before.
They point out living here undocumented is not a crime, but people are getting arrested, may not be guilty, but getting deported.
They ask if ICE provides useful information, Sheriff can’t give numbers, but have had contact from ICE id’ing someone as a drug dealer. They ask if this is significant information that outweighs the negative impacts. The sheriff remains concerned about positively identifying the people in jail. He can’t just take their word for who they are.
Hesselbein asks if they come in an id from another country if that would be acceptable. The sheriff says they will have a work visa. Hesselbein asks waht if they are illegal, what happens. The sheriff says then they report to ICE.
Bauer asks if they are found in NCIC will ICE be called. She gets two different answers, but eventually the sheriff says that unless they have a visa, ICE is called.
There is confusion. Hawkins tries to clarify. They need proof of residency as well as identification, if they have identification but not proof of residency, ICE is contacted.
Bidar-Sielaff says that no immigrant in their right mind would carry their permanent residency papers with them, the put it someplace safe so it is not lost.
Sheriff says visiting students should have the documentation with them.
Bauer asks if an expired or unexpired driver’s license could be enough. Sheriff says no, it doesn’t prove residency status, he wants something from ICE.
Bidar-Sielaff asks if they are checking residency or id and what is a valid id?
Sheriff says that a Wisconsin driver’s license is a valid id because you need a birth certificate to obtain that. They clarify again, if the person just has a license, do they ask for residency. Sheriff says yes. They use themselves as an example, would they be checked for residency? No, because they ask if they are a citizen and if you say yes, they let it go. If you say no, then they check. They push as to why a valid driver’s license would not be enough. Sheriff says its not enough.
Yudice points out that this is the largest issue and if the committee disagrees with the sheriff, they need to make a recommendation to that effect. They need to look at if the benefits outweigh the costs. He suggests that maybe they could only ask about citizenship in major cases. The sheriff points out that anyone can call ICE if they want to, including police officers. Yudice suggests that they could work with the DAs office in bigger cases and ask for conditions of bail because they are concerned about fleeing.
RECOMMENDATIONS
Bidar Sielaff suggests the following:
1. At the national level, support comprehensive immigration reform.
2. At the state level, change the driver’s license laws.
3. At the local level, change the sheriff’s policy for booking, have uniform language for law enforcement agencies in Dane County about policies around stops and do more outreach and community building. She says that will require resources.
Yudice says they need to recognize the fear that is out there and do more to mitigate that fear.
Sheriff says that some of recommendations at state and local level will have fiscal impacts.
Bauer says they could/should put bullet points under comprehensive reform. They bring up examples that they can look at where this has been done in other places. Ithica New York and the US Conference of Mayor’s resolutions are items they will look at.
Hawkins says that school policy of over-use of social security numbers should be addressed. That number has a specific purpose to track benefits, but should nto be used beyond that. ITINs are also acceptable, but these numbers should not be used for tracking people, they can use different numbers for that. He talks about a school employee who blocks out all social security numbers on applications on his desk for fear of identity theft. This may be a state or national recommendation because it is state and federal money that requires these numbers, like for the free milk program. Bidar-Sielaff says we should make sure that city and county funded programs don’t require it. It should not be required to get food from a food pantry.
Hawkins raises concerns about schools not following a court case that prohibits schools from asking questions about immigration status or questions that would make people nervous. They need to revisit that policy and court case in the schools.
Yudice recommends that the MPD and Sheriff’s office work on language that is the same for the policies since they are so similar and then maybe other departments will adopt it as well. Yudice says that officers don’t ask for immigration policies to violate rights, but lack training and direction, that is the beauty of having the policy, it documents it, he saw immediate changes when Madison created the policy.
Hampton says that they should look at the racial disparities report especially with having more translation service available.
Hawkins says that they also need to educate people that work in the agencies. Gives example of a teacher that was trying to be supportive and asked about immigration status and the student told him he was legal even tho he wasn’t even tho they had an opportunity to educate the teacher about it, they didn’t want to risk it. We could give people the language and tools to bring that up with more sensitivity.
They talk more about people in jail who are given choice of staying in jail or signing deportation papers and they wouldn’t even be stuck in jail if it were not for their immigration status. (i.e. minor crimes like shoplifting) and they discussed how a small crime has major implications. They are worried about people who are essentially forced to sign the deportation papers.
Hawkins says that they need to deal with not only what is intended, but also the unintended consequences of the policies in place.
Bidar-Sielaff talks about the problem of being robbed because people carry cash because they don’t have access to other forms of money (credit and checks).
They trailed off at the end and I didn’t capture it all, but with that, they decided to review the racial disparities report and other materials and meet on the 29th.
If you have ideas, that next meeting is the time to start showing up!!!
