Immigrant families and children’s advocates rally outside a Los Angeles Federal building on July 7, 2014, after President Barack Obama’s statement on the crisis of unaccompanied minors fleeing extreme violence in Central America. (AP Photo/Nick Ut, File)
President Obama announced recently that he would not take any executive action on deportation relief for undocumented immigrants until after the midterm elections. After signaling in June that he would take executive action, this reversal was met with disappointment and anger by immigrants’ rights advocates. Coming on the heels of Congress’ inability to pass comprehensive immigration reform, as well as the two million deportations over which President Obama has presided, this announcement seems to signal that the federal government will not have good news anytime soon for immigrants whose families are being torn apart, exploited at work, and having their dreams of achieving a brighter future in the United States dashed on a daily basis.
The silver lining is that, as with many other issues where the federal government has failed to act, states and cities are taking the lead in providing relief for immigrant families and helping secure their civil rights.
In California, a national leader in this movement, undocumented immigrants make up nearly one in ten workers. They contribute $130 billion—with a B—to the Gross Domestic Product, according to a new report released by the California Immigrant Policy Center in conjunction with researchers at USC’s Center for the Study of Immigrant Integration. The legislature has responded to this economic clout and the resolute advocacy of nonprofit immigrants’ rights organizations. In the last two years, the California legislature has passed an impressive package of bills to support immigrant families that has become a model for other states. These policies include:
- the TRUST Act, which sets a minimum standard to ensure that community members jailed for most low-level offenses are not held for extra time to make it easier to deport them.
- Access to California Drivers Licenses for all California residents regardless of immigration status.
- Clamping down on “notario” (immigration consultant) fraud for Dreamers seeking to take advantage of Deferred Action.
- The Domestic Workers Bill of Rights, which grants domestic workers the rights provided to other California workers, including overtime pay when they work more than nine hours in a day or forty-five hours in a week.
- Addressing retaliation by employers against immigrant employees who are vulnerable to workplace abuse due to their immigration status.
- Allowing undocumented immigrants to apply for professional licenses to practice occupations such as dentistry, medicine and nursing.
Recently, when the number of unaccompanied minors fleeing extreme violence in Central America spiked this summer, nonprofit service providers stepped up to address the crisis. While Congress and the Obama administration actually suggested rolling back due process protections for these children that had been passed by the George W. Bush administration, California responded by funding legal services and ensuring procedural safeguards for the child refugees. Immigrants’ rights advocates have harshly criticized the fast-track process implemented by the federal immigration courts, noting that deported children have been murdered by violent gangs in their home countries and children who flee violence and trauma are traumatized again by a complex legal process they don’t understand, without anyone to help them navigate the system.
Even cities are taking on this challenge. Cities across the United States, from Boston to Dayton, Ohio, to Grand Forks, North Dakota, to Louisville, Kentucky, and beyond are recognizing the economic contributions of immigrants and adopting policies to welcome these productive community members and ensure that they have access to police and other vital protections. Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti, taking the recommendations of many local immigrants’ rights groups, joined the movement by establishing an Office of Immigrant Affairs. This office creates programs and initiatives to support immigrant integration into the City of Los Angeles through coordination of city services, outreach, and legislative advocacy.
Immigrants’ rights advocates are still demanding action at the federal level; meanwhile, they are taking care of business in state houses and city councils across the country.
If you’re an advocate working on immigration policy, be sure to check out our Immigration Toolkit and Spanish language resources. Also, visit BolderAdvocacy.org for the latest news, fact sheets, and trainings to strengthen your advocacy.
