All Eyes on Governor Patrick: MA Residents Awaits Governor's Veto of Anti-immigrant Budget Provisions

Youth in MA statehouse preparing their hunger strike against anti-immigrant amendments.

This past Monday, in the midst of a roaring summer thunderstorm, immigrant rights advocates descended on the Massachusetts State House to call on Governor Deval Patrick to veto a series of anti-immigrant amendments in this year's state budget proposal. Similar to laws passed in states like Arizona and Georgia, these amendments take a reactionary approach to the broken US immigration system and seek to further criminalize immigrant communities in the Commonwealth.

 In Massachusetts, the proposed amendments would create a "hotline" for reporting suspected undocumented immigrants, increase fines for ID violations, institute immigration status checks for people registering vehicles, and restrict access to public housing for mixed-status families. Similar amendments had been proposed in the past two budget cycles, however this is the first year they effectively made it past both the State Senate and House. It now falls to Governor Patrick to line-item veto the amendments to ensure they don't make it into the final budget.

 Thankfully, after the rally in the rain, the threat of a hunger strike from ten youth activists, and a call-in campaign that showed widespread community opposition to the amendments, Governor Patrick agreed on Monday to not let any anti-immigrant provisions get past his desk. Since then, the combined House-Senate conference committee has taken care of part of Patrick's job for him. While reconciling their two versions of the budget, they effectively removed the budget provisions relating to public housing, the anti-immigrant hotline, and the increased penalties for using fake IDs.

 Despite these advances, as of now a number of anti-immigrant provisions still remain in the budget. If the current version goes through, immigrants would still face increased fines and possible jail time for operating motor vehicles without a license, and they would still be forced to prove lawful immigration status in order to register a motor vehicle. Restrictions such as these are not just punitive, they are also short-sighted. For example, since so many immigrants are forced to drive in order to work and provide for their families, a true solution to the issue of unlicensed drivers would be to expand eligibility for licenses, as other states have done, not increase fines.

 Governor Patrick has taken an important first step in expressing his disapproval of the anti-immigrant amendments. Now, in the coming week, immigrants and allies across the state will be watching to makes sure he stays true to his word, takes a stand for immigrant rights, and vetoes the remaining provisions. 

Take action TODAY! Call (617) 725-4005 and tell Governor Patrick to stay true to his word and line-item veto budget provisions that criminalize immigrants!

 Read the final provisions (Sections 92, 94, 95, 101, 213, 214): http://www.malegislature.gov/Content/Documents/Budget/FY2013/ConferenceReport-H4200.pdf

More than a pair of arms

This past fall, after the passage of the harsh anti-immigrant law in Alabama, reports of the negative “unintended consequences” of the bill began appearing in the popular media. Articles described the crops rotting in the fields, since all the undocumented farmworkers that usually pick them had fled the state. Advocates for immigrant rights have picked up on this phenomenon as evidence of the failings of the Alabama law; pointing out that the state’s economy relies on undocumented workers to do the jobs no US citizens want to do.

Arguments like these, which describe an important niche immigrant laborers fill in the US economy, are commonly used by immigrant rights advocates across the United States. “They just come here to work” and “they’re not even taking jobs US citizens want,” are common refrains. While it is certainly important to make these statements in order to expose the hypocrisy of US immigration law, when taken alone they fall far short of providing an accurate description of immigration in the US today.

The fact of the matter is immigration is complex. Immigrants come to the US for a variety of reasons; yes, to find blue-collar employment to make money to feed their families, but also to escape violent situations at home, to reunite with family members, or to seek additional opportunities for self-expression and personal development. The undocumented immigrants I know in the states are a diverse bunch – they are artists, philosophers, healers, students, and business owners. They are contributing to their communities in a variety of ways; everything from picking tomatoes to painting murals along our city streets to reviving our downtowns through new local businesses. The value of each individual immigrant stems not from some monolithic set of characteristics ascribed to her, but from her own unique character and contributions.

When the US “Bracero” program began in the 1942, it aimed to bring Mexicans into the US as contract workers to fill domestic labor shortages in the agricultural and railroad industries during World War II. The title of the program made it clear what value the US government saw in Mexican workers – they were only a “set of arms.” In 1945, when the war ended and the troops came home, many braceros were ousted from their jobs and ordered out of the country, even if they had established families or tight community ties during their time here.

It is time we recognize that immigrants in the US are much more than just a “set of arms.” As it concerns blue-collar workers, this means not only confronting the hypocrisy of the US immigration and economic systems, but also fighting to shake up those systems so that all workers in the US, including immigrant laborers, have access to fair wages, safe working conditions, and bargaining rights. For our immigrant neighbors, it means recognizing their value as human beings, in all their complexity.

In the immigrant rights community, “just coming to work,” has been widely accepted as a legitimate reason to immigrate to the US. But there are many other reasons people migrate and many different ways immigrants contribute and prove their worth within US society. In Alabama, the state is suffering not only because it has lost farmworkers, but also because it is losing mothers, grandfathers, singers, chefs, parishioners, and teachers. Truly meaningful social change for immigrant rights must take into account the diversity and manifold contributions of immigrants in the US. To be able to effectively fight for that change, we must expand our conversations to include a more open and frank discussion about the complexity of immigration today.

Cross posted with open borders blog