National Lawyer's Guild

Criminalizing Immigrants Makes Them Easier to Deport

New America Media, Commentary, Paromita Shah, Posted: Aug 10, 2007

Editor’s Note: The current spate of immigration raids and harsh ordinances did not come out of the blue but is the fruition of the careful build-up of an immigration law enforcement infrastructure for over a decade. Paromita Shah is associate director of the National Immigration Project (NIP) of the National Lawyers Guild. NIP is a member of Detention Watch Network, a national coalition working to reform the U.S. immigration detention system. IMMIGRATION MATTERS regularly features the views of the nation's leading immigrant rights advocates.

Immigration reform is dead – at least for the time being – but more raids, detentions and deportations continue.

But we also face a new emerging “deportation” strategy – one from local and state governments that seek to pass laws that essentially “deport” immigrants from the towns and the states in which they live.

The concept is simple: pass laws that make the lives of immigrants so miserable that they will be forced to leave, turning them into internal deportees in the United States.

According to the Washington Post, state and local governments have filed over 1,000 such bills. While most empower local police to act as immigration agents, a significant number obstruct immigrants' ability to obtain jobs, use necessary medical services, send children to public schools, find housing, get driver's licenses and receive many other government services. For example, the notorious Hazelton town ordinance required tenants obtain an occupancy permit from the city before renting a unit. One had to prove lawful residence or citizenship to get the permit. The town imposed hefty fines, $1,000, for violation of the ordinance.