Who's afraid of the angry nativists?Text and photos by Sarah Phelan
Is this man the true face of those who want immigrant kids deported without a chance to prove their innocence?
Yesterday, hundreds showed up to support Sup. David Campos proposal that the city's sanctuary policy be amended so that only immigrant youth who have actually committed a felony be referred to the feds for deportation. And during the four-hour hearing that ensued, only two people showed up to oppose the Campos amendment.
One of these two opponents is pictured above (forgive the ochre hue, but lighting in the Board chambers is tricky) and he seemed to be slurring his words.
The other described himself as an "openly gay person" and asserted that his sexual orientation is "not a choice."
"But coming here is in violation of federal law," this gentleman continued. "As a tax paying resident, I resent my tax dollars being used to settle a claim of the Bologna family, because the city failed to deport Edwin Ramos."
Kudos to this gentleman, who didn't share his name, for laying out the nativist argument against giving immigrant kids a chance to prove their innocence. (Especially since no one from the Mayor's Office showed up to defend Newsom's policy, which he implemented last July without any public input or notice.)
But as Campos politely pointed out to this gay, tax-paying resident, if the amendment which Campos is proposing was already in place, Ramos would have been deported while he was a youth.
And as others pointed out during yesterday's hearing, some youth come here to escape persecution for their sexual orientation, others come because their parents brought them when they were very young, others come to send money to their cash-strapped families, and others were born here to undocumented parents and have never set foot in Latin America, even though some folks assume they are undocumented just because they are brown.
But let's face it, those on the right who oppose the Campos amendment aren't going to be swayed by reason, not when it comes to banging the drum for a good ol' wedge issue like immigration, just before the 2010 elections.
All of which is entirely predictable. What's less easy to understand is why Newsom, who doesn't strike me as a nativist and definitely gets the civil rights argument around same-sex marriage, refuses to acknowledge the parallet civil rights argument when it comes to immigrant youth.
Newsom claims that the current policy "strikes the right balance between public safety and individual rights."
But clearly it does not. Since last summer, 160 youth have been referred to the feds without the chance to first establish whether they are actually guilty as charged--a disenfranchisement of the basic human right to due process that has created fear, anxiety and a mistrust of law enforcement within the immigrant community.
Meanwhile, mayoral spokesperson Nathan Ballard appears proud to assert that just because immigrant youth are accused of a felony, they no longer deserves the city's protection.
"If you are booked for a felony, you have lost the protection of the sanctuary city policy" Ballard told the Chron.
Well, Nathan, that's certainly an accurate explanation of how the policy that Newsom introduced last summer works, but that explanation doesn't make the mayor's policy fair or constitutional. ( Which may explain why no one from the Mayor's Office showed their face at yesterday's hearing.)
Instead, it was left to Sup. Michela Alioto-Pier to try and make the argument that because the City Attorney prepared a confidential cautionary memo about Campos' proposal-- a memo that Newsom subsequently leaked to the Chronicle--a closed session on the Campos amendment is somehow warranted.
While there is nothing inherently wrong with closed sessions when folks need to talk about confidential stuff, it seems a bit late for that now, given that the memo is posted on Newsom's website, and says nothing about the Campos' amendment being unconstitutional and everything about the city's fear of angry nativists.
As it happens, the true meaning of the leaked memo didn't fully became clear until a recent press conference, in which civil rights lawyers pushed back against Newsom's leak by presenting their own interpretation of the City Attorney's memo, along with their arguments in support of the Campos amendment
What's doubly troubling about Newsom's refusal to engage with the immigrant community on this civil rights issue is that under the current policy, the guidelines used to determine if there is "reasonable suspicion" that a youth is here in violation of federal immigration law appear to be overly broad.
Sure, the current policy states that an on-duty officer "may not rely solely on inability to speak English or on perceived or actual national origin," but the guidelines for reporting a youth to the feds also include the mere "presence of undocumented persons in the same area where arrested or involved in the same illegal activity."
Here's hoping that Newsom will have the courage to support the Board and the wishes of the immigrant community on this one, and not the Mickey Mouse arguments of angry nativists.
Yesterday, Immigrant and civil rights experts, LGBT advocates, youth and human rights commissioners, and members of the immigrant community gave powerful testimony about the impacts of Newsom's current policy, under which children and youth can be referred to the feds for deportation merely on the basis of accusations.
These impacts included families being ripped apart, kids being held in federal facilities far from San Francisco and the community's fear that deportees will end up dead as they try to cross a border that is increasingly treacherous, thanks to the Bush administration's decision to spend millions to build a wall to keep out the very folks that the capitalist economy relies on to pick our fruit, clean our toilets and look after our children--for dirt cheap.
As one woman, speaking against Newsom's current policy, asked, "What do you want? That our kids be perfect?"
Hopefully, we won't have to wait until Montana becomes a teenager before Newsom gets the wisdom of that particular point.
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Comments (4)
You have Edwin Ramos on your side. We all know his actual name why?
Posted by glen matlock | October 6, 2009 06:40 PM
Timothy McVeigh.
-marc
Posted by marcos | October 7, 2009 08:36 AM
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/07/us/07arizona.html?hpw
Things are moving in the right direction, with San Francisco at the forefront again:
PHOENIX — The Maricopa County sheriff, who has drawn scorn and praise for a running crackdown on illegal immigrants in this city’s metropolitan area, said Tuesday that federal officials had taken away his deputies’ authority to make immigration arrests in the field.
The sheriff, Joe Arpaio, whose high-profile sweeps have been cited in the fevered debate over the need for an overhaul of immigration laws, said he had sought a renewed agreement with the Department of Homeland Security to allow both field arrests and immigration checks at his jails. But a high-level department official presented a document a couple of weeks ago allowing only for jail checks,Mr. Arpaio said.
That prompted an angry, rambling outburst from the sheriff Tuesday at a news conference at which he called Homeland Security officials “liars” and vowed to press on with his campaign, using state laws, against illegal immigrants. He said he would drive those caught on the streets to the border if federal officers refused to take them into custody....
Posted by marcos![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.sfbg.com/blogs/politics/nav-commenters.gif)
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October 7, 2009 09:00 AM
The only thing SF is at the forefront of, is people who have an incredibly overinflated sense of self importance.
Posted by Bob | October 8, 2009 12:12 PM