Bad news for immigrants

By Mike Andrew

"Let's microchip illegal immigrants so we can track them like lost dogs." - Pat Bertroche, Republican Congressional candidate, Iowa.
"How about we put down land mines to get them at the border?" - Tom Mullins, Republican Congressional candidate, New Mexico.

"Looks like to me, if shooting these immigrating feral hogs works, maybe we have found a (solution) to our illegal immigration problem..." – Republican State Representative Virgil Peck, Kansas.

It’s easy enough to dismiss such statements as the overwrought rhetorical flourishes of a few half-crazy right-wingers.

Certainly, no Washington state politician is likely to advocate shooting immigrants or blowing them up at the border.

Nevertheless, our state’s budget crisis – like the nation-wide recession which brought it about – has created an atmosphere of resentment towards immigrants, and proposals to take away state services that used to be available to them.

All of this is complicated, of course, by the failure of the Obama administration and the 111th Congress to address comprehensive immigration reform.

"I think that our state and nationally there's an increasing resentment against immigrants, legally or not legally, to be honest with you ... and I think it's growing," said Rep. Phyllis Gutierrez Kenney (D-46). "If we don't get immigration reform at the federal level, it's going to get worse."

The legislature adjourned its regular session and went into special session on April 26, still facing two critical fiscal challenges:
First, to close a cash deficit of more than $500 million dollars in the supplemental budget for the fiscal year that ends this June, and
Second, to write a budget that closes a projected $5-7 billion deficit in the 2011-2013 budget.

The two biggest budget-cutting proposals for the 2011-2013 budget both take services away from immigrants.

One proposal is to strip medical coverage under the Children's Health Program from an estimated 27,000 children whose legal status is unclear, for savings of $59 million.

The other is to eliminate the State Food Assistance Program, which provides food stamps for legal immigrants, among other low income and disabled residents, to save $45 million.

While these proposals promise budget savings, they don’t really add up economically.
Parents will seek treatment for their uninsured children at hospital emergency rooms, where medical care is even more costly than it would be through a state-funded insurance program, according to analysis from the immigrant rights organization One America.

Taking food stamps away from legal immigrants also has a negative fiscal impact on the state. “Food stamps produce an economic stimulus greater than any other spending and are needed during an economic crisis that has left more children and families food insecure than at any other time in Washington State’s history,” One America says.

Both programs have been spared from cuts in the House of Representative's version of the supplemental budget for this year, but their long term future is still in doubt.

DSHS is currently under a temporary federal restraining order preventing them from terminating immigrants' state-funded food assistance and denying new applications for eligible immigrants, pending litigation on the issue.

Immigrants, refugees need our help

By Mark M. McDermott

Board Member, OneAmerica

Our immigrant and refugee friends and neighbors need your help to stop state budget cuts to programs that are critical to their ability to avoid hunger, get good health care, find employment, and get help in earning their citizenship.  Your voices are needed to stop these cuts and address several legislative proposals.

Governor Gregoire has proposed elimination of the following programs which provide:

•  Food assistance to 31,000 very low-income immigrants
  
• Interpreter services for Medicaid clients and their health care providers which help ensure effective communication about the patients’ health care needs and appropriate treatment.
  
• Preventative health care for 27,000 undocumented immigrant children.
  
• Employment and training services and English language instruction to help refugees find jobs.  This highly successful program has helped thousands of refugees find and keep jobs needed to support their families.
  
• The Naturalization Program of the Department of Social and Health Services, which has helped thousands of legal permanent immigrants get their citizenship.

The Legislature currently has 6 bills addressing driver’s licenses for undocumented immigrants. Senate Bill 5407 bans all licenses while House Bill 1577 allows a limited type of license.  These bills or others like them will increase the number of unlicensed and uninsured drivers on the roads.  We have too many drivers without licenses and insurance now.  The Legislature should not make this problem worse by passing any of these bills.  They should stay focused on road safety and let Congress deal with immigration policy.

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On a positive note, Senate Bill 5158 reduces the maximum sentence for a gross misdemeanor by one day.  Why is this important?  Federal immigration law calls for the automatic deportation of persons convicted of an “aggravated felony,” defined as any crime that results in a sentence of 365 days or more.  Currently, an immigrant convicted of a gross misdemeanor with a 365-day sentence might serve 30 days with the remainder suspended and then face mandatory deportation.  This bill will ensure that only felons face mandatory deportation.

Immigrants and refugees are our neighbors, friends, family, and co-workers.  They work, pay taxes, support local businesses and start their own businesses.  They are vital to the economic and social wellbeing of our state.  These proposed budget cuts are cruel, shortsighted and harmful to immigrants and our state.  I urge your opposition to these budget cuts.

We are told that we don’t have the money to pay for these successful programs.  This is nonsense.  Our state gives billions of dollars of tax breaks for corporations and has low rates of taxation for our many billionaires and millionaires.  We are a wealthy state.  We can afford to fund these programs if we have the will and courage to demand that the wealthy and powerful pay their fair share of taxes.

For more information go to One America’s website.  www.weareoneamerica.org

Please contact Washington State Legislators at 1-800-562-6000.  Ask them to protect our immigrant and refugee communities.

A swift response to racism:

Immigration reform now!
An editorial

Arizona has just become an American-style racist police state, where failure to carry immigration documents is a crime, and where a brown skin can get you jailed.

“Racial profiling will be the law” in Arizona, writes William Finnegan in The New Yorker. “Whites will be all right, just as they were in the Jim Crow South. God help everyone else.”

In response to the new law, hundreds of protests and vigils have taken place in Arizona and around the country. A movement is under way to boycott Arizona products and to deny the state its lucrative convention and tourist income.

Meanwhile, in “liberal” Seattle, white supremacists, in a sneak dead-of-night attack, vandalized the offices of the Washington Community Action Network.

The vicious attack broke office windows, slashed tires of vehicles, plugged vehicle exhaust pipes and sprayed racist graffiti outside the office, including “RaHoWa,” which stands for “Racial Holy War,” and the number “88,” a symbol for “Heil Hitler.”

Washington CAN is a statewide grassroots community organization working for social, economic and racial justice. It is a leading participant in the current immigrant rights campaign and in the campaign for universal health care.

Racist ugliness is and spreading in our beloved country, and we who cherish basic rights must find effective ways to expose, challenge, combat and defeat it.

Foremost on the national agenda is the urgency of comprehensive immigration reform. Immediate congressional action has been demanded in Seattle and across the country in May 1 rallies and marches.

The immigrant rights movement is calling (1) for the immediate introduction of legislation that will force Republicans in Congress to vote “yes” or “no,” and (2) for executive action from President Obama that will prohibit harsh enforcement and deportations while reform is being enacted.

The Puget Sound Alliance for Retired Americans condemns all racist and xenophobic acts and supports unconditionally the swift enactment of comprehensive immigration reform. This would afford an essential measure of justice to immigrants, documented and undocumented, and at the same time would represent a powerful statutory rejection of racist ideology.


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