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
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