This weekend saw the culmination of Duke Students for Humane Borders’ Immigration Awareness Week with an inspiring speech delivered by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and undocumented immigrant, Jose Antonio Vargas.
“Together, undocumented immigrants like me and the citizens who aid us are increasingly telling the truth about our broken system,” writes Vargas on his website.
The weekend also marked the signing into law of Mississippi’s anti-immigrant bill, HB 488.
The law requires police officers to check the immigration status of those arrested and prohibits those without proof of documentation from starting businesses or “having transactions” with the state for services.
This bill is only one of a growing number of laws written in the vein of Arizona’s SB 1070, which, in the summer of 2010, simultaneously garnered national outrage and approval. Copycat laws have appeared in several states, including Louisiana, Georgia and South Carolina. In fact, according to Vargas in his speech to students, 162 anti-immigrant bills have been introduced across the U.S. in just the past two years.
Last year, the state of Alabama passed the harshest of these “reform laws” thus far. It stripped those without papers of most rights, including the rights to enroll in public colleges, solicit work, rent property and access any public services—including water services. Administrators in K-12 schools were required to track the immigration status of children at their schools. The children, some as young as four or five, were required by law to present their birth certificates at school. Because of this, on the first day of classes last year, towns like Foley, Ala. saw high numbers of withdrawals and absences of Latino students from school. At Foley Elementary, 19 Latino children withdrew, 39 were absent and those who did appear were crying and afraid. Although some of the provisions of this bill have been blocked by the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, the law still stands.
Ironically, any measure of “success” lawmakers hoped to see was overshadowed when thousands of immigrants fled Alabama, resulting in the subsequent blow to local agriculture and other businesses. Without farm workers to tend to the fields, millions of dollars in crops were lost and left to rot.
Of course, the aspect of these laws—and of Arizona’s law in particular—that has elicited the most outcry is the requirement that officers check a person’s status if there is “reasonable suspicion” that he or she is undocumented.
Reasonable suspicion can stem from any characteristic, from the color of a person’s skin to the hint of an accent. The term is indicative of a vaguely worded law and provides nebulous guidelines for police officers. Local officers do not have the training or knowledge to act as pseudo immigration enforcement.
In a debate, presidential candidate-hopeful, Mitt Romney, described the Arizona law as a “model” for formulating immigration policy. Yet, that is just what we don’t need at this time: a continuation of the controversy, fear and alienation that these laws incite. Those immigrants who escaped Arizona and Alabama were fleeing—there is no other word for it—persecution.
This environment of fear lives close to home, too. Here in Durham, Section 287(g) of The Immigration and Nationality Act enables local police officers to enforce immigration law. Even now, they must check the status of those detained. Like the anti-immigrant laws, this agreement can encourage racial profiling. Though the law is ostensibly for catching “dangerous felons” it is often more likely to cause the deportation of DREAM Act-eligible youth and others for petty crimes such as broken headlights or driving without a license.
According to community members, just this past week, many immigrant workers feared to even drive their children to school because of a series of police checkpoints that had been set up across Durham. Their fear might seem unjustified if not for the fact that checkpoints are more regularly seen in predominantly Latino communities, outside churches that have services in Spanish and even outside stores like Food Lion.
This isn’t an Arizona issue, and it is not “just” a border issue. This is a Durham issue, and this is a national issue.
This is an issue that concerns every person on our campus. “Not just undocumented people need to come out,” Vargas said in his talk to Duke students. “The people who support us need to come out, [too].” As voters and student advocates, we can take certain actions, however small, to speak out against these ill-conceived attempts at immigration reform.
Your own state could be among those trying to pass similar legislation. There are several steps you can take back home. You can contact your local DREAM Team, call your state and local representatives, make calls to release DREAM Act-eligible youth arrested for civil disobedience or post a description of the law outside your dorm room.
And please, reach out to us at sc154@duke.edu if you’re ready to speak out.
Shaoli Chaudhuri is a Trinity senior and the co-president of Duke Students for Humane Borders. This column is the ninth installment in a semester-long series of weekly columns written by dPS members addressing civic service and engagement at Duke. Follow dPS on Twitter @dukePS
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