City Channel Pittsburgh, PA Commission on Human Relations Public Hearing - 6/30/17, 18 Jul 2017

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From YouTube: Commission on Human Relations Public Hearing #4 - Welcoming/Sanctuary/Freedom Cities

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A

B

Welcome back, I am Commissioner Mick Moreland, and this section of the hearing will be about the topic of sanctuary freedom and welcoming cities and I'm joined by Commissioner Gerhart, and we are honored to be joined by Jules LaBelle.

B

Who is an attorney and a professor at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law and recently the former president of the Center for Constitutional Rights, also by Sundrop Carter, the executive director of the Pennsylvania Immigration and Citizenship coalition, and also by Betty Cruz, who oversees the implementation of the community blueprint and who recently was the coordinator for the welcoming Pittsburgh initiative and also by Ronald Newman who's director of strategic initiatives for the ACLU International and over recent years that local municipalities and agencies have implemented a range of policies to protect the civil rights of all people, including immigrants who work, live or visit their municipality.

B

And today we're going to explore what some of those options are. And why are they are necessary? It's I want to start with Jules LaBelle, and can you tell us both why such policies are necessary and what role local municipality play in creating them?.

C

Thank You Gabe, it's my pleasure and honor to be asked to speak here today, as we learned in the morning and as most people know, ice and the federal government has increased enforcement and detention of the immigration laws to the point where many communities feel fearful that they can be rounded up at any time or seized at any time and pained both immigrants and possibly even citizens, and it's not simply what's gotten the most attention, which is the ban, the travel ban, but it's the interior enforcement.

C

The way that ice is going around and seizing people and sowing fear in our communities and also profiling. You know so if they see one person who they think is undocumented immigrant, they round up a whole bunch of people as a in the same in the same vicinity. So what can cities do about this? What can pittsburgh- and I think, they're I- think Ronald lumen and the other panelists will talk about the more specific points. I just want to sketch a broad picture.

C

The first thing is that cities can, to the extent allowable on the federal law and federal law has a lot of discretion. They can refuse to cooperate with ice in in this detention and round up. So, for example, cities can require that there be a judicial warrant before somebody's detained. They can refuse to give somebody over to ice who's, committed or who's, been arrested on a minor, a minor charge or who is arrested and later released. They can refuse to ask people with detain questions about their immigration status.

C

All of that is consistent with federal law and cities that are either called freedom, cities or welcoming cities of sanctuary cities, and the name doesn't is not that important, I, don't think, but whatever they, whatever one calls the city, the city can bump up to the extent of federal law to not cooperate with ice and with this anti immigration policy.

C

However, I think a city like Pittsburgh and cities generally should go beyond simply the non-cooperation and when I say non-cooperation non-cooperation as permitted by federal law, which again gives quite a bit of discretion.

C

But we can go beyond that and take affirmative measures to protect immigrants in our communities to welcome immigrants on our communities.

C

Increased social services, increased avenues for reporting, for example, domestic violence, where the person would be made to feel that they're not jeopardizing their status or their continued stay in the United States I think in in a broader perspective, even providing legal support for people. These are affirmative measures and I think we shouldn't just think of this as non cooperation, but we should think of what the city can do. Affirmatively to protect immigrants in our myths, from an administration which is clearly anti-immigrant and to be pro immigrant means not simply non-cooperation but taking affirmative steps.

C

So that I think is the broad picture and, as I say, other people will fill in a lot of more of the details. But I'd like to talk about the fact that I think that this anti immigration policy, that Trump has the Trump administration and you know to a certain extent the Obama administration before it has full voice. Third, is not simply about anti immigration, and it doesn't simply raise issues of immigration policy. I think that's I think it does raise. Obviously immigration policy issues but I, say I.

C

Think the second broad issue which might be equally important is that it raises issues of our very democracy itself. So it raises both immigration issues and issues of democracy and the there are now several cases winding their way through the courts raising basic questions of constitutional democracy, because what the Trump administration is essentially saying to cities.

C

Is you don't have local control over protecting people in your midst, we're not going to let you have local control and, despite the fact that the right-wing constantly trumpets you know we're against big government, we're against the federal government before local control.

C

It's hypocritical because, as we see on issue after issue, whether it's immigration, whether it's environmental policy in fracking, whether its minimum wages and labor policy, when localities like a city like Pittsburgh attempt to further the will of their own communities and exercise popular sovereignty and say this is what we want to do. This is what our position is. The federal government or the state government comes down on them and says: no.

C

You can't do this, you don't have local control and so I think the progressive movement has to seize the banner of local control here and say: no, you you, the Conservatives have always trumpeted, but it's hypocritical it's only because you want local control to enact the regrette reactionary agenda, but once the cities try to do something different, we're going to come down on you and I'll give you. The two cases that are now pending one is involving the Trump administration's a threat to cut off all grants to cities that become sanctuary, cities or freedom.

C

Cities, and this is being tested now out in the Bay Area in San Francisco and the federal court a month or two ago struck, struck down or enjoined the Trump administration doing it, and it was on issues of basic democratic governance.

C

The the court found that the executive branch and, of course the right wing has always been saying. Oh when they're Obama, the executive branch had too much power. Well now, when the executive branch says we're going to cut off grants, they say great, except for the little fact, the problem that in our constitutional democracy, it's the Congress that an axe, the laws and not the executives and the Congress has enacted the was creating criteria for grants and crepe through the criteria.

C

Don't include whether you're, a sanctuary, city or not, and therefore to the executive to do it on its own is what a basic violation of separation of powers and constitutional democracy I'll end with the case involving Texas. Now, where the state legislation legislature in Texas has said, no local official can refuse to turn over immigrants or do what we're trying to do with sanctuary cities, because you don't have any local control over it.

C

This is going to be a state matter and it's going to be preempted by the state and the state is going to tell you. You can't do it and that's now being challenged in the Texas courts and it's being challenged both as a violation of basic local sovereignty and also because what the state's doing is really preempted by federal law, because the state can't go beyond what federal law does and that's why? Arizona's laws, as you remember, which was quite reactionary, was struck down several years by a goal by the Supreme, Court and I.

C

Think the same thing is going to happen to Texas, so I think the battle line is both pro-immigrant and also Pro local democracy. Thank.

D

You Jules yes,.

B

Thank you now we're going to hear a statement from each speaker and then, if we have any follow-up questions, we'll close with that. So now, I'd like to ask Sandra Carter from the Pennsylvania Immigration and Citizenship coalition, you've been doing a lot of statewide work in Pennsylvania and I'd like you to tell us about the Fourth Amendment city model and any other sort of local models. You want to hold up great.

E

Thank you so yeah. Thank you so much for inviting me I just want to reiterate something jewel said, which is these terms that everyone uses a sanctuary, city, freedom, city. Fourth, amendment city are all meaningless from a legal perspective. There is no legal definition to any of these terms and, honestly, you ask 10 people you're going to get 10 different answers about what any one of these terms mean, and so it becomes very confusing.

E

When people say we are or are not a sanctuary city or we are or are not a welcoming city, because whether you are or are not, one of those terms depends on who you ask not because there's a definition so I'm just going to talk about the types of policies we have in Pennsylvania and disregard whatever meta label. People call it because most of them are just made up either by politicians for furthering political views or by activists for their political views.

E

You know both sides of the game play it, and so first is there's a cluster of policies that are really around limiting how local law enforcement agencies collaborate or engage with ice. So these are, for example, so it LC as policy and then several counties around the state. What it says is that local law enforcement Philadelphia police- if they have someone in custody for whatever reason and are about to release them if ice asks them to hold that person beyond their release date.

E

They will not do so unless ice can give a judicial warrant so ice currently has a document. That's called an ice detainer, which is basically just a form that any individual ice officer can say. I've heard you have some drop Carter in custody. Can you please hold her because we want to talk to her about her immigration issues? It is not reviewed by anyone else, so there's no, it could just be. You know that ice officer doesn't like me. Who knows what it is right like there's no, no review of it.

E

So what cities are saying in what's adelphia and many counties have said to ice is if you want us to hold someone, you need to follow the fourth amendment, which requires a judicial warrant. You need a judge to sign off saying. Yes, there is a reason why we're going to hold this person beyond when we would otherwise release them, and that's all of that does right. It doesn't keep ice from standing outside the police station and picking the person up. It doesn't mean that I can't get a judicial warrant right.

E

They could in fact get a judicial warrant if they wanted to. All it's saying is local police officer. Local police departments are requiring that ice go through that step of having a warrant in order to hold someone, and so here in Pennsylvania, everyone I think knows: Philadelphia has this policy because they're the the poster child, but in fact, there's about 30 counties across the state that also have this policy. They do not have this policy because they are particularly Pro immigrants or you know, are interested in protecting immigrant communities.

E

They have this policy to protect themselves from litigation because there have been multiple lawsuits, including one in Lehigh County and one here in Allegheny County. That have said you know. If ice asks you to hold someone who turns out to be a US citizen, you are clearly violating the Constitution, and that is what happened in both Lehigh at Allegheny County's, and the judicial warrant would eliminate that potential lawsuit opportunity.

E

So the counties that have passed these policies have done so out of self-interest of protecting themselves from litigation, not necessarily because they're, particularly supportive of immigrant communities, and so there's that class of sort of law enforcement focused policies. There are also many police forces either the city itself or just the police force, has a policy of not asking about immigration status during the regular course of business, so from a law enforcement perspective. The reason why many law enforcement agencies have this policy is murder is murder is a crime, because killing people is a crime.

E

It doesn't matter what your legal status is right. Murder is bad if you're, a citizen murder is bad if you're, undocumented murder is bad. If you have a green card, asking someone about their immigration status, doesn't make that crime worse or better.

E

So many local law enforcement agencies for the purposes of being able to both prosecute someone and then find witnesses or be able to talk to victims of crimes, have instituted policy saying we will not ask about immigration status because it doesn't actually help us investigate crimes in our community and in fact it can hurt our ability to investigate crimes, because victims and witnesses will not come forward and without those victims and witnesses is actually very hard to get a conviction.

E

And then the third sort of category is racial profiling. So racial profiling is a problem for all communities of color. This is not an immigrant specific issue, but for immigrants, often, the way that someone is identified by ice is because they've been caught up in some sort of law enforcement, engagement and the reason they've been caught up today.

E

Law enforcement is just like there's the driving, while black there's also driving, while Brown, where law enforcement will pull someone over the only citation that's given is driving without a license, for you know many undocumented folks who can't get a license, and so the question becomes, if the only citation is driving it without a license. Why did you pull this person over because I can't tell looking at all of you whether or not any of you or all of you have a driver's license?

E

So how is it this police officer could tell someone had a driver's license just by this person driving by if there isn't an issue around racial profiling, and so that's the law enforcement types of policies that are often called sanctuary freedom force amendment policies, then there's a cluster of policies that are sort of more on the proactive side of the welcoming policies. So this is unis apologies that say we will provide services to everyone in our municipality, regardless of immigration status.

E

So, unless it's a program like public benefits, where there's a federal requirement to have a social security number, but unless there's that you know federal requirement exists, all other municipal services are open to all residents, regardless of immigration status and again, echoing the police department policies. We won't ask about immigration status.

E

So if you come to apply for a small business, license you're eligible to get a small business license and we're not going to require you to have any particular legal status and we won't ask about it in order to open a small business in our community. So that's one example of how you can welcome immigrant communities.

E

Another one is language access making sure your municipality has a robust language access plan. So do all of your municipal offices, from your licensing office, to your library, to your police department to City Hall, have a plan and our municipal employees trained in how to communicate with people who don't speak English. So do you use phone interpretation?

E

Do you have live interpreters but having a robust plan so that, regardless of someone's English skills, they're able to access municipal services and then there's sort of the resolutions right, like lots of people, declare themselves welcoming cities or sanctuary cities, but don't actually have a policy, they literally just say we're a welcoming city I. Don't really consider that a policy and I think that's actually added to the confusion, because someone says we're word sanctuary City, but they don't have a policy.

E

So what does that mean for the federal executive order or for the state bills that are in process and I just want to flag a couple of things like look at? What's the next step, you know for Pittsburgh. Has some of these policies not all, but already has some good policies. What's the next step beyond that, so some of the things you can do further for non-cooperation is ask telling ice. You can't have an office within our municipal buildings right you can do what you want right thirds. You municipalities cannot tell ice.

E

You can't come into the city of Pittsburgh or you can't come into Allegheny County. That's not allowed, but you can tell ice. You can't have an office in our police station. You can't have an office at our County Jail, we're not going to expend our resources to staff out your your job.

B

D

We having actual.

B

A

D

All right welcome back. We had a fire alarm with a minor evacuation and we are about to hear from Ronald Newman who's going to have to leave us at 2:00 sharp, so Ronald Newman is the director of a cou international, a director of strategic initiatives. Excuse me Ronald you're, on oh.

A

Thank you very much and thank you to all the people in the audience for letting me join. The conversation, Jules and thunder office have done an extraordinary job, laying out the basics on the issues under discussion and in particular, the way in which those issues have intersected with Templar, vania and Pittsburgh. More specifically, I think. The expectation for me is to talk a bit about the national context which I'll try to to quickly do and then I'll spend a short moment on the freedom cities campaign, which is something that the ACLU launched back in March.

A

That also fits into this broader conversation. So, first on the national context, the dynamics we've talked about in Pennsylvania and in Pittsburgh, and these ongoing discussions about the ways in which localities will interact with their immigrant communities.

A

These types of conversations are going on all over the country and these dynamics are playing themselves out all over the country, and you have cities like Seattle, Washington and Los Angeles, fornia, Newark, New Jersey and many many others that have adopted immigrant friendly and, as we often like to say, Constitution friendly policies. These are the immigrants you also have conservative counties in places like North Carolina that have done the same thing.

A

Fun job noted that you know, irrespective of political persuasion, these policies make sense on on sort of legal and practical grounds, and- and so you know, we- you know who knows what the number is, because the the category is a hard one to define, but estimates have suggested that upwards of 600 jurisdictions around the country have adopted the the types of policies that fall in the bucket of sanctuary policies or freedom policies.

A

But then, obviously, there have been other jurisdictions that have pushed in the other direction. There's a growing list of local jurisdictions that have affirmative ly. You know joined arms with the the current Trump administration and joined up in what are called 287g agreements, where local police officers are deputized to operate more or less like federal immigration agents, and so we that that troubling dynamic is also out. There. You've also seen cities that have taken the threats from the federal government too seriously out. You know we would.

A

We would suggest cities like Miami, for instance, that previously maintained you know pretty strong policies in these areas, but then pull back on those policies when the federal government threatened to withdraw federal funding- and you know the other thing that's been interesting- is that these conversations have also you know, trickled upward to the state level, and so you have states like California or states like Massachusetts that are considering statewide bills. That would include many of the elements that Sundrop introduced, but the state wise bill would apply those rules across the entire state.

A

You know, there's also a state. We know reasonably close to you guys, Illinois, whether with a Republican governor that may soon adopt policies that fall in this the same general bucket and then on the flip side. You know you, sadly, have states like Texas that Jules mentioned that has already passed a aberrant, lis, anti-immigrant piece of legislation called SB 4 and the ACLU and other organizations are currently litigating over that, so that the dynamics are playing themselves out.

A

You know hidin housing in lots of places around the country and, as you'll know, that our courts have not been spared. From this conversation, the the decision we got back in April, in which a federal court pushed back on the the funding threats from the Trump administration, was a helpful one, because the bluster from the federal government had effectively cows lots of localities into doing things that that they, independently determined, were in their their best interest.

A

So that was helpful and but I don't think that the the battle in the courts is is over on these issues by any stretch of the imagination and then the other thing that this should be mentioned. Is that Congress, which you know s fits and starts, is also exercising its voice. And in this conversation Frank earlier this week, the House of Representatives passed a piece of legislation that still needs to get through the Senate and likely will not make it through the Senate.

A

But this legislation would attempt to squeeze states and localities even harder on these types of issues, but directly requiring or strongly coercing additional forms of collaboration with federal immigration agents and also making an attempt to broaden the federal funds that that might actually be subject to withdrawal if local communities choose not to attack team with the Trump administration. So that's that's a bit on the national context, not only in the court but also in in Congress the freedom cities which I'll spend you know.

A

My final couple couple of minutes on is a is the campaign the ACLU started back in March that essentially thought to add value to a you know: a pre-existing conversation. These issues have been been moving hot and heavy for four years now, so we weren't introducing anything. You know new. Indeed, ACLU national and our affiliates in each state have been heavily engaged on these issues for four years. Along with you know, thousands of organizations, including organizations like Sun, drops, but one thing that we we try to do in March was add.

A

A new element to the to the discussion and, and that element is a is an additional sort of you know grassroots piece. You know we came to the conversation saying you know, look.

A

These decisions are best made at the local level and, if we're going to make progress, we're going to need to make progress at the local level, because the federal government's in a very different place- and so we wanted to think of something we could do that might complement the existing initiatives that were being driven by immigrant rights organizations and others all across the country.

A

You know what we wanted to do was try to bring a little more firepower to the to the battle and, in particular, the the firepower of everyday volunteers and everyday folks, so that not the non-professional class people that don't do this stuff for a living but picked up the paper and said: hey I, don't think I like the direction in which our country going so what we did is we crafted non-model policies that are largely aligned with some of the policies that Sundrop introduced earlier, not having local police officers. Ask about immigration status.

A

You know not granting access to detention facilities to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, protecting the privacy of people's information, so not giving people's home address or other contact information to ice, and we package that into you know non model policies, and then we coupled it with training materials on tactics and strategies that that, folks again, that don't do this for a living could use to advocate within their local communities.

A

Whether that's getting a you know, a letter to the editor published in the local paper or testifying at a city council meeting or engaging in a and in a protest. What we wanted to do was facilitate the engagement of folks speaking as constituents speaking of community stakeholders and add that that extra potential juice to the conversation, and so we've made good progress.

A

Under this initiative and hopefully added some value, I mean there have been places like Ann, Arbor, Michigan and Albany California that have passed the freedom cities, Model Rules verbatim, largely as a result of constituents everyday folks, driving the conversation with their representatives. There have been resolutions in places like Middlesex, County, New, Jersey and Rockville Maryland and Silver City New Mexico, where our people power activists have also been been heavily involved in and worked.

A

You know, hand in hand with immigrant rights groups to you know, get us across the finish line on some of these issues, and so it's an ongoing battle and we'll have to continue to stick with it. But that's that's a particular approach that we've taken to this. To this broader conversation and and all of our work is been cabined under what we call the people, power plan or mitts.

A

In short, an organizing platform that you can find more about at wwp bolt our org and it again allows you know people to organize within their communities and work on some of these issues independently or in conjunction with immigrants, rights organizations. You know like Mahinda or any other number of immigrant coalition's out there. So I'll stop there, but that's a bit on the broader national context and then the freedom cities initiative, which has been one of the principal ways. The ACLU has sought to add value in this ongoing conversation and.

B

Now we're going to return to Sundrop Carter thank.

D

E

Right I literally had like one point left before the fire alarm went off and so on the topic of physical presence, so talking about telling ice that you can't be in your police stations, etc. Another way that ice has physical presence is ice will actually go to city jails, county jails or state detention, facilities and leased beds. So, instead of having their own own Detention Center, they will lease beds at gut. You know state or or city detention, centers, so municipalities could say to ice.

E

Thank you, but no we're not signing that contract with you, we're not going to turn our local detention center or our local jail into an immigration detention center and then finally, I just wanted to draw the connection and Jules had already mentioned this of the connection between municipal level policies and state level policies. So in Pennsylvania we have a very active state legislature who often looks to see what what municipalities are doing and if they agree with you good.

E

But if they don't agree with, you will often take action and we see that right now in Pennsylvania, there's a bill introduced that is targeted at Philadelphia, but will affect every single County, a municipality across the state. In the proactive side, we also have a bill that would address this 287g, which is what states can sign on to at the federal government. Just basically the state version of what these local ice hold policies are, so the state can say Pennsylvania does not want to actively cooperate with ice.

E

We will, you know, cooperate when we're federally mandated to, but we're not going to actively use state resources to enforce immigration, specific laws, so that was it well.

D

Under your minute,.

D

B

No, we go thank.

D

B

So now we're going to hear from Betty, Cruz and we'd like to ask you to share some information about the welcoming initiatives. You've been involved in in Pittsburgh and Allegheny County, including the community blueprint and all for all great.

F

Thanks for for your time and I, think that the speakers that came before me did such a good job at detailing much of it that I only want to use a little bit of time. So we have. We have an opportunity to dig into some questions before jumping too much into welcoming specifically I do want to reiterate the point that Sundrop made Jules and others that whatever we call this whatever the name is given wherever you are.

F

If it's fourth amendment, if it's welcoming with freedom, if it's sanctuary what what I'm concerned about in one point that hasn't been made, that I want to illuminate that, the you know, policies or whatever you call. It is only as good as how its enacted so how it's enforced. So we can call it any one of those and that's lovely, but how are they actually being held accountable and being enforced? And what I'm concerned about that hasn't been said.

F

Yet is we're starting at least I'm starting to feel like there's a pitting against one another when we could be learning and stronger together and enforcing actual action and the type of legislation and follow-through that we want to see by just pushing forward and not being concerned around the name.

F

Only as it relates to welcoming that movement started in Nashville Tennessee, specifically because one of these bad legislation, bad piece of policy, was being introduced, statewide enforcing immigration or question I, the English only legislation in Nashville Tennessee, and it was an immigrant rights organization, just like son drops, but in that state that rose up and started to push against that legislation and it did not pass and that that has spun out and grown to be a membership of cities and nonprofits across the country.

F

I was fortunate to be involved in the creation of the mayor's welcoming Pittsburgh initiative when I was at the city and one thing that I want to say about what we call ourselves again. Going back to that point that the Sun Drop hit on is cities sometimes start to wave the welcoming flag or wave the sanctuary, flag or wave. You know whatever flag, without realizing the issues that exist right now, so I encourage all of us elected officials and those in the movements and those who want to be allies to talk about what you know.

F

This is aspirational.

F

This is where we want to aspire to be and then again pushing that work forward, some of the ways that it's come together on the ground, both in my bringing together my new role at all for all and leading that initiative that was born out of a year-long planning process that was shepherded by the Department of Human Services, had almost 90 immigrant leaders at the table, multiple other stakeholders from superintendents to community advocates and with that body 130 point plan was produced and then it was decided that we didn't want that to live in government and it needed to be outside of government.

F

So I left my role at the city and have had the privilege to be part of the team. That's that's moving.

F

That plan forward under the initiative, all for all after the election councilman Gilman, had decided that he wanted to introduce a body of policies of a legislative package that that really spoke to the type of city we should be, and ideally would be, a model for our region and that legislative package was called City for all and it included everything from city services, so making sure that any city services, whether you're going into city parks, whether you're you're coming into government municipal buildings, whomever you're encountering you are not being discriminated against because of status because of your ethnicity.

F

Because of your race because of your heritage. There also was a another legislative piece that was that the city would not contract with anyone who was found guilty of wage theft. So any organization, that's exploiting workers and has found guilty, has been found guilty of that.

F

There was also a legislative piece on the police's commitment to the policies that they had put forward: the Pittsburgh Police Bureau on community policing and within that. If you look at those policies that speak to not asking status, there was a doubling down on daca and that's more of a good space effort, because obviously there's no there's no jurisdiction there, but to say that that we wanted to see dock up reserved language access so that the city would embark on a planning process that would develop a language access plan.

F

That would then obviously need to be implemented and then, finally, the creation of an Office of Multicultural Affairs, which was also put forth and, as I understand, is being developed within the Public Safety Department. So that process, when I should say, when councilman Gilman flagged that he wanted to do this. One of the things that that I mentioned right away was well. We need a community at the table right. We can't do these things in a vacuum and he said absolutely so.

F

A couple of the folks who are in the room here today were invited to be part of that conversation, as well as a number of others. That represents everything from the Latino community to the Asian Pacific Islander community, to the Muslim community to communities of faith, and they were the ones who were saying this is this is what we want to see. This is what we don't want to see.

F

We had a healthy conversation around workforce, I should say, I'm, sorry, wage theft and a recognition that, for example, this one piece of policy is just the beginning. It does not go far enough to really hold employers accountable in terms of those who are exploiting their workers because they feel that they can and workers more and more are free to come forward and demand the rights that they deserve because of the political climate.

F

But again that wasn't a one and done it was a this is the beginning, and next it's something to build on and I. Think. That's to me the most important point with any of these policies, whether they're in Pittsburgh or Philly or anywhere in between the policies, are only as good as there there's accountability. There's clear ownership, there's there's the flexibility to learn and grow.

F

It's a different climate today than it was a few months ago when these policies were introduced, so we I think need to be more forward-thinking and more open to to the realities that our communities are facing right now. I also wanted to point out that for Pittsburghers I'm stating the obvious, but it's an even more delicate dance here, because we're not just talking about one city, one municipality, one township.

F

So if we want to be able to protect our immigrant neighbors and communities of colors, we of color, we need to think beyond the city of Pittsburgh. We need to think about the other municipalities that surrounds the city as well as extend far beyond that. We know that we have Latino communities in Westmoreland County.

F

We know that we have Latino families in that are moving into Moon, Township and Coraopolis and cranberry and places that probably aren't the first ones that you that you think of I also want to point out that it's not just the Latino community right. So, if we're talking about ice, there's a temptation for, for whatever reason for probably for the demonization that takes place most often with the Latino community, but it's not just about the Latino community. So again, we need to broaden our solidarity.

F

It's about the Asian Pacific Islander community too, that there is a significant number of undocumented individuals in that community I've heard from Turkish community members and from refugees who are frightened by these these policies and who are threatened or feel threatened by it and I think I'll stop there. Thank you.

D

Thank you. Did you have any follow-up question.

B

um This was touched on already, but I want to put it out there in case any of the panelists have a brief further response to it.

B

If could anyone share further thoughts about how encounters with local law enforcement or encounters with the criminal justice system generally can lead to detention or deportation?.

E

Sure I'm happy to provide a little bit so as I mentioned before. Obviously, racial profiling is a big piece and again this is a broader than an immigrant issues. This is affect all communities of color that racial profiling really has a negative effect on all communities of color again for immigrants. Interactions with law enforcement is often the gateway to deportation, because the way ice operates is often it's not like.

E

They have a list of every person in the country and their legal status, so they often will just keep an eye on criminal databases so whether that's the National Criminal database or the database that tracks warrants whatever those law enforcement databases are and when names pop up that are don't have an immigration status assigned or, however it is their internal database works that they then go after that person based upon the address information that is attached to the person's name within whatever criminal database.

E

So interactions with law enforcement is the most common way for ice to be able to flag someone's name as someone they may want to investigate further for deportation. As many everyone knows in this country. You know we have between eleven and twelve million undocumented family members, community members who have gained that lack of legal status and over of ways whether it's crossing the border without authorization or whether it's coming in on a visa or some other type of temporary status.

E

That then expires so because there's no national registry in our country's law enforcement is just the easiest way for ice to flag. Someone for deportation.

B

We so thanks so very much to all of you and I know. We all learned a lot and the next topic, so we are closing this section of the agenda and again, thank you all for sharing your knowledge and your time, and the next section of the agenda will be education. Discrimination with commissioners, Fogarty and Eberhardt.

B