Kenney and activists slam 'Donald Trump' immigration bill
The bill would take federal funding from cities like Philly that dont turn over all illegal immigrants to feds for deportation.
MARIA CASTANEDA, 19, who was brought to the United States illegally from Mexico by her mother at age 3, yesterday stood with Philadelphia Democratic mayoral nominee Jim Kenney and a host of immigration activists to denounce a federal bill that they say would lead to the criminalization of undocumented people living in the United States.
Passed last week by the U.S. House of Representatives on a vote of 241 to 179, the "Enforce the Law for Sanctuary Cities Act," would bar so-called sanctuary cities and states from receiving millions of dollars in federal law-enforcement funding for refusing to cooperate fully with federal immigration agents.
The legislation was introduced following the slaying earlier this month of a San Francisco woman by an undocumented Mexican immigrant who had been deported five times and convicted of seven felonies.
Though the Senate has not yet voted on the legislation, which critics have dubbed "The Donald Trump Act," President Obama has promised a veto if it reaches his desk.
Trump, seeking the Republican nomination for president, has used the San Francisco case to highlight his opposition to illegal immigrants and sanctuary cities, which refuse to turn over illegal immigrants to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials unless warrants are presented.
Mayor Nutter last year signed an executive order stating that people in city custody who otherwise would be released will no longer be held for immigration agents, and notice of their release will not be provided unless a person is being released after conviction for a first- or second-degree felony involving violence and the feds have a judicial warrant.
The act of city police turning over illegal immigrants who have committed minor offenses or who are witnesses or victims of crimes would result in immigrants being reluctant to report crimes and help police solve them, yesterday's protesters said, echoing Nutter's rationale for signing the executive order.
"We're all for safety in the streets, safety in our communities, and we'll hold people at the request of the federal government when they have a warrant," Kenney told the gathering in Center City's LOVE Park.
"I also would wish that the United State's Congress would be as animated and energetic about gun violence and education as they are about holding immigrants without a warrant."
Erika Almiron, executive director of Juntos, an immigrants' rights group, added:
"As the birth place of freedom and the City of Brotherly Love, we must stand against policies that seek to divide us . . . and that is essentially what the Donald Trump bill" does.
During the speeches, Castaneda, a Swarthmore College sophomore majoring in Latin American Studies, held up a sign that read, "Immigrants are not your scapegoats."
"An entire community should not be punished because of one person's actions. It's a very closed-minded view to have that you're going to separate families just because of this one person," she said of the San Francisco gunman.
"He's not representative of the other 11 million [undocumented] people in this country," added Castaneda, who since 2012 has been safe from being deported under the Obama administration's Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals policy.