(C) Verite News New Orleans This story was originally published by Verite News New Orleans and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . Immigrants’ rights advocates worry anti-’sanctuary city’ bill will create mistrust, violate federal mandates [1] ['Bobbi-Jeanne Misick', 'More Bobbi-Jeanne Misick', 'Verite News'] Date: 2024-04-10 New Orleans immigrants’ rights advocates say that a bill in the Louisiana State Legislature aiming to outlaw so-called “sanctuary cities” risks further straining already-tense relations between local law enforcement and immigrant communities in the city. And legal experts say the bill, if passed, would conflict with federal court orders restricting the New Orleans Police Department and Orleans Parish Sheriff’s Office from directly participating in federal immigration enforcement. Late last month, the state Senate voted 26-11 to approve Senate Bill 208, sponsored by Sen. Blake Miguez, R-New Iberia. The bill would ban parishes and municipalities from adopting “sanctuary policies” meant to prohibit local law enforcement officials from investigating suspected civil immigration violations on behalf of federal agencies. The bill is now awaiting debate in the state House of Representatives. SB 208 is one of several filed by Republican legislators this session that seek to expand the role of local and state law enforcement in immigration enforcement. It also appears to fit a broader pattern of proposed legislation directly targeting the city of New Orleans, Both the New Orleans Police department and Orleans Parish Sheriff’s Office have longstanding policies that place such restrictions on their employees. Gov. Jeff Landry, an immigration hardliner and ally of former President Donald Trump, has long opposed policies like those in New Orleans. As state attorney general, Landry in 2016 claimed the NOPD’s immigration policy — which prohibits officers from inquiring about immigration status or helping to enforce federal civil immigration laws — violated a federal law that bars local law enforcement agencies from prohibiting their employees from sharing information with federal immigration agencies. The police department’s policy, however, was developed in consultation with the U.S. Department of Justice, as part of reaching compliance with the NOPD’s long-running federal consent decree. The NOPD adopted the immigration policy in 2016, about three years after a federal judge approved the consent decree, which specifically bars officers from taking law enforcement actions based on “actual or perceived immigration status” or questioning crime victims or witnesses about their immigration status. The Orleans Parish Sheriff’s Office’s immigration policy bars the agency from investigating immigration violations and detaining immigrants for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement without a court order, except in certain cases where they are facing charges for a small number of serious violent crimes. That policy was likewise adopted as part of a federal court settlement. Immigration rights advocates say the bill not only seeks to force the agencies to violate those court settlements but will foster mistrust between law enforcement and immigrant communities. “I think the people who have proposed this bill, because they themselves are not being impacted, have a lack of understanding, like [at the] level of idiocy, [about] the impact of these policies towards public safety,” said Rocio Aguilar, an organizer at the New Orleans Workers’ Center for Racial Justice, which pushed both the NOPD and Orleans Parish Sheriff’s Office to adopt policies limiting coordination with federal immigration agencies. Aguilar said immigrant community members believe New Orleans’ policies are a “small relief” to immigrants working in the city who have felt exposed to the threat of deportation. New Orleans Independent Police Monitor Stella Cziment said when she worked as a public defender before the consent decree was instituted, she had clients who were afraid to call 911. “There was a fear that reporting crime would result in a potential deportation,” Cziment said. Cziment said the consent decree was meant to create a safer city for everyone, including police. “We understood [that] those populations were there and we intended for those populations to be protected by the consent decree,” she said. ‘A rock and a hard place’ According to the Center for Immigration Studies, New Orleans is the only municipality in Louisiana that has “sanctuary” policies in place. Still, Miguez has said that the bill does not target the Crescent City. In an emailed statement to Verite News, he said the bill pertains to “illegal immigrants who commit violent crimes.” “Crime is a top issue in the state legislature this year. It is my intent for Louisiana to be known as a law and order state, not a sanctuary state for law breakers,” Miguez said. “The same is true for each of our cities including the City of New Orleans.” The most up-to-date version of the bill, however, does not contain language that would limit its enforcement to suspected violent criminals. Miguez also said the bill does not conflict with any federal court mandates. “The bill complies with the New Orleans consent decree because it excludes victims and witness[es] of crimes from being reported to federal immigration officials,” Miguez said in his emailed statement. However, provisions in the bill appear to be at odds with both the NOPD consent decree and a federal court settlement reached by then-Sheriff Marlin Gusman in 2013. In that case, filed in 2011 by the Workers’ Center for Racial Justice, two men said they were illegally held in the city’s jail for months at the request of ICE. (The sheriff’s office is also under a consent decree in a separate federal case that bans the jail from detaining people at ICE’s request for more than 48 hours after they have been released from state criminal charges or bailed out.) The policies that resulted from both settlements prohibit locally initiated investigations or inquiries into suspected immigration violations. Attorney Mary Yanik, co-director of the Immigrants’ Rights Law Clinic at Tulane University, said the language in the bill that law enforcement should “use best efforts to support the enforcement of federal immigration law” conflicts directly with the federal consent decree. Miguez’s bill would also seek to outlaw any local policy that keeps local agencies from entering partnerships with ICE as part of the federal 287(g) program, which deputizes state and local law enforcement to act as immigration agents. “That’s a really radical approach to have that broad mandate on local law enforcement,” Yanik said. “And it really will constrain and sort of dictate [that] local law enforcement expand their responsibilities to now include facilitating immigration enforcement on top of the other important work of policing communities and trying to keep people safe.” A representative from NOPD said the agency does not comment on pending legislation. (NOPD officials have previously offered comment on legislation moving through the state Capitol.) Will Harrell, a longtime jail watchdog who now oversees policy directives as OPSO’s senior programs monitor, said if SB 208 becomes law, it will put local law enforcement officials between “a rock in a hard place.” “If we were to follow the plain language of the law, if it became law, we would be in violation of a consent settlement [and] our current policy that is in compliance with that consent settlement,” Harrell said in a phone interview on Friday. “We’re in a very difficult position with respect to the federal courts.” While the bill was on the Senate floor, Sen. Royce Duplessis, D-New Orleans, proposed an amendment that would add language allowing for law enforcement agencies under federal consent decree to abide by the policies approved by the federal courts. That amendment was rejected before the bill passed the Senate. New Orleans City Councilmember Lesli Harris said she believes the bill directly targets New Orleans. “The gubernatorial administration has really focused on New Orleans,” she said. “And I think that this bill specifically focuses and targets New Orleans as being a sanctuary city, where the City Council has welcomed immigrants into the city. This is attempting to block that power from us.” Related Republish This Story Republish our articles for free, online or in print, under a Creative Commons license. [END] --- [1] Url: https://veritenews.org/2024/04/10/immigrants-rights-advocates-worry-anti-sanctuary-city-bill-will-create-mistrust-violate-federal-mandates/ Published and (C) by Verite News New Orleans Content appears here under this condition or license: Creative Commons BY-NC-ND 3.0 US. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/veritenews/