Doing the right thing and setting an example for the nation

As this goes to press, Mayor Michael Nutter is signing the executive order ending local police compliance with ICE holds. The mayor's decision to issue the order, announced last week, has been lauded by many of the city's immigration advocacy organizations for essentially halting the use of warrantless "holds" that allowed ICE agents to check the immigration status of those arrested for a misdemeanor by local police. Though the holds were limited so they could not be extended to checks on the status of victims or witnesses, many advocates feel that the fear of just that has, for many years, kept undocumented immigrants from reporting crimes targeting them or their communities. 

The mayoral executive order will require a judicial warrant be issued before an immigration status check, effectively, immigration advocates say, making issuance of a detainer or hold less widespread and routine and more a case by case decision. 

This is a powerfully good thing. It will help keep families together instead of permitting an undocumented parent to be wrested away for what amounts to a minor infraction. A recent New York Times analysis of government records shows that nearly two-thirds of all deportation cases involved people who had "committed minor infractions, including traffic violations, or had no criminal record at all."

"This is a victory for all communities of Philadelphia," the South Philadelphia Latino immigrant-led organization, Juntos, reported in a release. It will, they added, " "send a clear message to this nation and to President Obama that Philadelphia will no longer participate in the mass deportation of our families, friends and neighbors."

The executive order will go a long way in preventing profoundly unfair deportations prompted by the "crazy" immigration laws that have been passed in the past decade — as activist Hiro Nishikawa said in the AL DÍA cover story of March 25. 

The 75-year-old survivor of the World War II Japanese-American internment camps described it thusly: "Somebody who is now gainfully employed, has set his life straight but as a teenager was involved in gang fights and whatever; had to serve time, did his time, got out, rehabbed, got some schooling, skills; eventually married and had kids, and now in his 30s, gets stopped by a light someplace. They check it and find out he has a 'criminal record' and he's detained for deportation."

"It is double jeopardy at its worst," Nishikawa said. "This is not an American thing to even tolerate."

There are many ordinary citizens, like Nishikawa and like those who staff Philadelphia organizations like Juntos, New Sanctuary Movement and Pennsylvania Immigration and Citizenship Coalition, who have served as our nation's conscience in speaking out against policies and laws that treat immigrants as if they were hardened criminals not even worthy of a judicial hearing. It is gratifying to see the mayor of our city joining his voice to these voices of conscience. 

We, like Juntos, hope that this action resonates at the highest levels of government — and that instead of waiting for Congress to agree on some form of immigration reform, President Obama issues an executive order to stop the deportations that have decimated and intimidated immigrant communities across the nation. 

It is possible . Sí se puede. Just follow Philadelphia's lead.