Sanctuary cities bill an unfunded mandate on police

The legislative proposal to racially profile immigrants is another effort to make life miserable for them and drive them out of our state. Furthermore, it is an unfunded mandate for local law enforcement and municipalities.

The Mississippi Senate this month passed SB 2306, which would force state and local police to serve as immigration enforcement officers and comply with federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detainers to hold immigrants in custody. It would also mandate that state and local police hand over immigrants they encounter to federal ICE officers simply for suspicion of being undocumented. Have you ever heard of “driving while black?” This expands to “driving while brown.”

This bill purports to protect officers from civil liability while enforcing federal immigration laws, but in actuality they would very likely still be sued as other county sheriff’s departments and municipalities have for holding someone more than 48 hours without probable cause. This bill would significantly burden local governments with costs of holding people for ICE without reimbursement, as well as potential costs associated with litigation against the state and local jurisdictions for constitutional violations. These provisions would not make communities in Mississippi any safer. Rather, they would reverse community-based policing efforts that are vital to public safety in our neighborhoods.

The bill’s sponsors say it is intended to stop any Mississippi city or town from becoming a “sanctuary city,” or one that limits the time and money local law enforcement spends helping federal immigration authorities detain undocumented immigrants. But they acknowledged in the Senate debate over the bill that no municipality is a “sanctuary city,” so it is not clear why the bill is even needed.

Immigrants, Latinos, Asians, Africans and other immigrants account for growing shares of Mississippi’s population and economy. Together they make up some 3 percent of the state’s population and over one-third naturalized U.S. citizens and are eligible to vote.  Immigrants not only contribute to the state’s economy as workers, but also account for billions of dollars in tax revenue and consumer purchasing power. Moreover, Latinos and Asians, both foreign-born and native born, wield nearly $3.3 billion in consumer purchasing power, and the businesses they own have sales and receipts of $1.7 billion and employed more than 14,000 people at last count. As the economy continues to grow, Mississippi would be ill-advised to alienate a significant component of its tax base and business community.

And Mississippi family values?  A majority of immigrant families residing in our state are in “mixed families,” that is family members that could be U.S. born, have legal residency, have been naturalized, or are simply undocumented. This is nothing new as our immigrant ancestors’ families were similar. Do we want to toss out our human values with racial profiling, incarceration of people who are only seeking a better life for themselves and their children, broken families, and cost Mississippi billions of dollars of lost revenue and business activity?

After the legislatures in Arizona, Alabama and other states approved their “immigration control bills,” these states experienced negative economic consequences. Meanwhile, other states have considered similar proposals, but abandoned them after concluding the economic, enforcement costs and liability would prove too high. SB 2306 and its House version should be stopped in its tracks and killed.

Rims Barber is director of the Mississippi Human Services Coalition.