Year Ahead Promises Renewed Resistance to Anti-Immigrant Ordinances
By M. Aurora Vásquez, Staff Attorney, Advancement Project
The presence, power, and interconnectedness of immigrant communities in this country was never as vivid and powerful as when millions of our immigrant sisters and brothers took to the streets in April and May 2006 in response to H.R. 4437, a blatant attempt to criminalize the undocumented and those who, through their social, faith, and business commitments, provide services to them. And while many immigrants and non-immigrants in big and small cities alike recognized the fundamental human, racial, social, and economic dangers of the road the country was poised to take, some communities reacted with nothing short of hostility. Yet, as the 2006 wave of anti-immigrant ordinances spread throughout the country, individuals, community leaders, lawyers, and other advocates quickly mobilized—both reactively and proactively—to stem the tide.
In mid-July 2006, Hazleton, a small Pennsylvania city located on six square miles and boasting an immigrant population of approximately 3.7 percent, put forth a staunch anti-immigrant ordinance that created a whirlwind of copycat ordinances throughout the country. Citing their authority to “abate public nuisances,” the ordinance intended to prohibit the provision of services and housing to the undocumented because, according to the city, “illegal immigration leads to higher crime rates … and diminishes [the] overall quality of life.” Within short order, on July 25, 2006 a nearly identical ordinance was narrowly defeated in Avon Park, Fla., when the city council’s only Black member voted against the ordinance, disagreeing with the claim that the presence of undocumented residents leads to higher crime rates; contributes to failing schools; creates substandard quality of care; destroys neighborhoods; and diminishes the overall quality of life. Nearing the end of 2006, and a short six months after the first anti-immigrant ordinance of the year reared its head in Hazleton, as many as 58 similar ordinances surfaced across the country, with only 12 being rejected outright.
Grassroots organizations like the Tennessee Immigrant and Refugee Rights Coalition (TIRRC: http://www.tnimmigrant.org/) prepared to stem the tide should similar ordinances swell in their state. To this end, TIRRC, a group whose membership of individuals from Latin America, Africa, Asia, the Middle East, and Europe clearly demonstrates that the immigration debate is not purely or even mostly a Latino issue, was successful in blocking Nashville’s “Illegal Landlord/Illegal Business” bill in late November 2006. Additionally, and in tandem with community-based efforts and public outrage, legal organizations such as the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund (PRLDEF: http://www.prldef.org/.), the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU: http://www.aclu.org/immigrants/index.html.), and the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF: http://www.maldef.org/.) took on the ordinances where ever they appeared.
MALDEF and the ACLU of Texas rounded out the defensive maneuvers in 2006 by filing suit against the City of Farmers Branch, Texas, on December 27, 2006, while PRLDEF, the ACLU of PA, the Community Justice Project, the law firm of Cozen O’Conner, and local attorneys David Vaida and George Barron continued their successful effort to block implementation of Hazleton’s “Illegal Immigration Relief Act.” On October 31, 2006, this team succeeded in obtaining a federal court order blocking implementation of the Hazleton ordinance and six weeks later received a second victory when they secured a federal court ruling protecting the plaintiffs’ right against disclosure of their identities and immigration status. Simultaneously, PRLDEF and its Latino Justice Project responded to the public’s need for information on this hostile trend by collecting and making publicly available a list reflecting the status and location of every anti-immigrant ordinance appearing in the country. Today, interested parties can visit the PRLDEF website at http://www.prldef.org/Civil/Latino%20Justice%20Campaign.htm to see a list of cities, from Massachusetts to California, which have or continue to grapple with similar ordinances.
In closing, while 2007 has not yet promised racial justice advocates it will stem the tide of anti-immigrant attacks, 2006 has shown us that swift, collective response by people of varying races and ethnicities, community, faith, and business leaders, in addition to lawyers, can have a profound effect on the direction the country takes as it reflects on the immigrant presence. And as supporters of immigrants and immigrants’ rights prepare to move forward in 2007, it is important to continue collaborating, networking, pooling resources, replicating successes and best practices, as well as building multiracial alliances, if we are to go from stirring up small, although sometimes successful, ripples of resistance in individual cities, to creating a nationwide movement in the name of immigrants’ rights and racial justice.
