Special to The Bee
Published: Friday, Sep. 21, 2012 -
12:00 am | Page 17A
When I hear about injustices like
the near-deportation of the "tamale lady," my heart sinks. I'm
relieved common sense eventually prevailed in her case, but sadly, many more
immigrant Californians are not so fortunate.
In July, the same month local mom
Juana Reyes went public with her story of facing deportation due to an arrest
for selling tamales, immigration authorities expelled about 650 California
residents with no criminal record.
Only after she became
internationally known were Reyes' deportation proceedings closed.
It's a rare reprieve. Despite
promises from immigration officials to use "discretion" to prioritize
serious cases for deportation, less than 2 percent of the hundreds of thousands
of deportation cases pending nationally had been closed as of June, according
to an analysis from Syracuse University.
Federal authorities aren't the only
ones who seem to be acting like discretion doesn't exist. The immigration hold
request that caused Reyes' 13-day detention in the county jail, when she
otherwise would have been released within hours, is purely optional under
federal law. But many sheriffs appear to be misinformed about this key legal
principle.
These parallel failures of
discretion are wasting local resources, souring community confidence in law
enforcement and breaking up families.
But there is one person who can
immediately bring balance and clarity to this mess: Gov. Jerry Brown.
By signing the TRUST Act, Brown will
remedy the damage caused by this absence of discretion. The bill will save
local resources and rebuild community confidence in police and sheriff's
departments.
The TRUST Act – Assembly Bill 1081
by Tom Ammiano, D-San Francisco – will set a reasonable standard for local law
enforcement across the state, ensuring people may be held for extra time at
immigration authorities' request only if the individual is charged by a
district attorney or convicted of a serious or violent felony.
This is a legally sound alternative
to the discriminatory approach taken by neighboring Arizona. And it's entirely
within the state's purview to prioritize local resources to advance community
policing.
The TRUST Act also brings
California's participation in the flawed federal deportation program "Secure
Communities" back in line with the program's original intent.
Under the program, fingerprints of
all arrested are automatically sent to Immigration and Customs Enforcement,
regardless of innocence or how insignificant the charge. ICE then asks local
police to hold anyone it believes might be "deportable" for
additional time, at local expense.
While ICE purports to prioritize
those with "serious convictions," according to ICE's own data, about
7 in 10 of the nearly 80,000 Californians deported to date had no convictions
or minor offenses.
Despite these troubling impacts,
some sheriffs, including Sheriff Lee Baca of Los Angeles, have claimed ICE's
hold requests are "mandatory."
That's simply incorrect. And this
misunderstanding underscores the need for this bill.
In a recent letter to Brown, more
than 30 of my colleagues from law schools across the country explained that ICE
holds are not orders carrying the force of law, but completely optional
requests. California's effort to limit them is entirely within its power.
I concur.
My colleagues' letter also
highlights another serious consequence of unchecked immigration holds: wrongful
detentions of U.S. citizens.
At the University of California,
Davis, immigration clinic, attorneys have represented five people in ICE
detention who were later determined to be U.S. citizens or nationals. Most were
placed in ICE custody via hold requests.
The problem is not limited to
Northern California.
In Los Angeles, Antonio Montejano, a
U.S. citizen wrongfully detained for several days by local authorities on a
hold last November, fielded a striking question from his son:
"Daddy, can they take me (too)
because I look like you?"
No child should have to ask that.
Nor should any child be separated
from hardworking parents who contribute greatly to our state, but lack
documentation due to Washington's inability to develop a reasonable immigration
process.
Despite the many advances I have
seen during my career as a litigator and jurist, the basic principles of
equality and fairness under the law are clearly at risk.
In fact, the question by Montejano's
son reminds me of the injustices I see based on the federal government's rush
to deport, much like my family's experience during the Depression when I was a
small child. Though my brothers and I were American-born, we too ended up in
Mexico due to a now-discredited "repatriation" program during the
Depression.
I have faith that Brown will move us
closer to a future of fairness and equality by signing the TRUST Act.
