Tahirih Fights to Preserve Access to Police Protection and Life-Saving Services in Virginia
In our December 2006 Newsletter, we anticipated that a rising anti-immigrant backlash, fueled by widespread frustration with Congressional inaction on comprehensive immigration reform, could lead to increased efforts to promote local enforcement of immigration laws in the 2007 Virginia General Assembly session. But we could hardly have braced ourselves enough for the onslaught that came next.
From the beginning of the session on January 10th to its adjournment on February 24th, the General Assembly considered 53 immigrant-related proposals, mostly aimed at “cracking down” on immigrants. Several bills would have further endangered immigrant crime survivors by giving them reason to fear that contact with the authorities could lead to their deportation, rather than to their deliverance from violence.
Seven of these bills either authorized state and local police to enter into Memoranda of Understanding (MOUs) with US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) or purported to deputize all Virginia state and local police—even outside of an MOU—to enforce federal civil immigration laws. Of these, two went so far as to make the mere presence of an undocumented immigrant in Virginia a Class I (the most serious) misdemeanor crime and to provide for warrantless arrests of undocumented immigrants.
None of the bills pressing for local immigration enforcement included any provisions to ensure that immigrant crime survivors, such as Tahirih’s clients, could safely come forward to seek help from the police.
Still another particularly alarming measure would effectively have denied immigrant crime survivors access to other life-saving support services. HB 2937 threatened to make every non-profit organization in Virginia “card” all those seeking help at the door, by prohibiting the use of state and local funding to assist undocumented immigrants. Almost all of Tahirih’s clients are “illegal” insofar as their tragic circumstances have denied them legal status. For example, abusive husbands often deliberately fail to file required paperwork for immigrant wives as another tool of control and intimidation and traffickers often smuggle in their victims on false passports or visas. But those same circumstances give all of Tahirih’s clients a legal entitlement to be here under federal law (e.g. the Violence Against Women Act or the
Victims of Violence and Trafficking Protection Act) that Tahirih helps them access.
If HB 2937 had become law, Tahirih could have lost critical grant money that enables us to provide our legal services. Tahirih also risked losing access to the extensive network of other social service providers that help ensure a safety net for our clients (shelters, crisis counselors, etc.).
The Tahirih Justice Center worked with a broad-based coalition that succeeded in defeating rash proposals like HB 2937. Tahirih led the specific effort to rally advocates against local immigration enforcement measures. Tahirih staff prepared background materials, circulated legislative updates and action alerts, traveled to Richmond several times to testify, and marshaled other witnesses. The testimony of Col. Dave Rohrer (Fairfax County Chief of Police) and Captain Eddie Reyes (Alexandria Police), as well as the compelling story of a Tahirih client who had been unjustly detained by ICE and local authorities, all provided crucial “frontline” perspectives about the dangers of Virginia police taking on immigration enforcement functions.
As a result of these focused efforts and those of the broader immigrant advocacy coalition, at the end of this year’s General Assembly session, only eight of the 53 original immigration-related bills remained, none of which threatened to deputize local police to enforce immigration law. In fact, two of the remaining bills that were ultimately signed into law by Governor Kaine are positive law enforcement measures that help protect immigrants from those who would extort money or labor from them by withholding their immigration documents.
Virginia is an increasingly important battleground state for these debates. Foreign-born residents now represent about 10% of Virginia’s total population. Virginia is literally in the backyard of our nation’s legislators and policymakers and we have tremendous potential to show them how to create strong, safe, and inclusive communities. Though we faced tougher battles in the General Assembly this session than in prior years, we were also joined by many “reinforcements.” The coalition that Tahirih spearheaded in opposition to local immigration enforcement nearly doubled in size to over 70 groups across the state.
But our struggle to ensure immigrants’ access to police protection continues, as the Town of Herndon on March 13th approved its own MOU with ICE, and other localities around the state are considering similar moves. Tahirih testified against the MOU before the Herndon Town Council and we will continue to raise our grave concerns about the “chilling effect” such initiatives have on immigrant crime victims and witnesses. We will also continue to monitor the implementation of local MOUs and to advocate vigorously to ensure the protection of the most vulnerable among us, which should be part of the police’s core mandate in any town.
