Immigration Enforcement at the
State and Local Levels:
What Should I Know?
Karen Siciliano Lucas, CLINIC
January 12, 2012
What are states doing and why?
The blame game
“Attrition Through
Enforcement”
Getting people to
“self-deport”
Everyone is an
immigration
agent
What does state immigration
enforcement look like?
State legislation:
• Restricting access to public benefits, including education
• Sanctioning employers who hire unauthorized workers
• Criminalizing basic actions to sustain self and family
• Criminalizing basic acts of Christian charity
• Criminalizing lack of federal registration
• Taking away legal personhood
And then there’s the actual enforcement….
What does state immigration
enforcement look like?
State police (and citizens) get wide powers:
• warrantless arrests on suspicion undocumented
• “reasonable suspicion” at traffic stops
• Georgia’s immigration enforcement board
• holding arrestees in jail until status can be verified
• automatically denying bail to undocumented
• right to sue and obligation to enforce
Here are the 2011 state legislative session results….
2011 State Legislative Session Summary
• States are now free to pass even more employer
sanctions bills (17 are already in place)
• Still, of the twenty-five (25) states that threatened in
2011 to pass strong immigration policing bills, only five
(5) enacted them into law
• And there are a few more reasons to hope
What happened in Alabama? #crisisAL
• families left schools and
communities behind
• water and other utility
service threatened
• marriage licenses denied
• attorneys turned into
immigration agents
• provision of health services reduced
• custody and adoption proceedings became
a dangerous business
What happened in Alabama? #crisisAL
• Attorney General Luther Strange: state employees
can’t make independent determination of
immigration status
• U.S. District Judge
Thompson: state cannot
check immigration status
for mobile homes
• Governor Bentley says
must tweak HB 56
The Latest Came from South Carolina
U.S. District Judge Gergel blocked 3 parts:
• Harboring/transporting
• Self-Harboring/transporting
• Registration
• “Reasonable Suspicion”
State Officials are Called Out
Maricopa County, AZ
Judge Thompson, AL
Judge Gergel, SC
Judge Thrash, GA
U.S. Supreme Court
4 parts of AZ’s SB 1070 will be considered:
• “Reasonable Suspicion”
• Registration
• Solicit or Perform Work
• Warrantless Arrest for
Deportable Offense
What have we seen in 2012?
• MO: enforcement, status checks in schools
• CA: not enough signatures to get instate
tuition on ballot; guest worker ref.
• IN, AZ: new court challenges
• PA: proof of status for public benefits
• CO: instate tuition variation
Two Danger States 2012
Questions?
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