In response to the Trump Administration’s various attacks aimed at immigrants during the President’s first week in office, the ACLU of Rhode Island today urged municipal officials to adopt a comprehensive ordinance designed to protect their immigrant communities from constitutionally dubious federal actions and pronouncements. While state officials have begun considering how to address the various policy edicts emanating from Washington, D.C., the ACLU’s letter to municipalities emphasizes the important role that local officials can also play in protecting residents from questionable demands of federal immigration officials.
Many Rhode Island residents and public officials have expressed alarm at the series of measures being touted by the President, which target not only documented and undocumented residents, but even U.S. citizens. The model ordinance sent by the ACLU today to Rhode Island’s mayors, police chiefs and city councils pushes back against those measures. The proposal includes such provisions as requiring judicial warrants before honoring ICE detainers; assisting crime victims who may be eligible for special immigration status; rejecting participation in a program, known as 287(g), that essentially deputizes local police to serve as immigration agents; and avoiding other forms of engagement in immigration enforcement that can adversely affect public safety and undermine good police-community relations.
In a letter accompanying the draft ordinance, the ACLU noted that “ordinances like this one promote public safety by maintaining and encouraging positive police-community relations. Residents serve as witnesses, report crime, and otherwise assist law enforcement. The foundation for this cooperation can often be destroyed when local police are viewed as an extension of the immigration system.” The ordinance, the letter added, “in no way bars your police officers from continuing to cooperate with ICE in enforcing immigration law when backed by judicial authority or otherwise properly mandated by federal law.”
Furthermore, the letter pointed out, many officials are unaware that they have no legal obligation to honor immigration civil detainer requests, and may face legal liability for doing so. In 2017, for example, the ACLU of Rhode Island was successful in a suit it brought on behalf of a Providence resident and U.S. citizen who was subjected to a humiliating strip-search and held overnight at the ACI as the result of an unlawful and erroneous federal immigration detainer.
In response to the Trump Administration’s threat to withhold funds from jurisdictions that fail to direct resources towards federal immigration priorities, the ACLU letter points out that the Administration is likely to encounter substantial constitutional hurdles if it attempts to follow through on that pledge, as shown by prior court decisions, including one from Rhode Island during the first Trump term.
“The ACLU of Rhode Island is prepared to take action to protect municipalities that adopt immigrant-supportive policies and practices,” said Steven Brown, Executive Director. “Just as the state has an important role to play in protecting Rhode Island’s immigrant community, we urge our local officials to protect all of Rhode Island’s residents from the Trump Administration’s xenophobic crusade by proactively enacting measures that keep cities and town officials from becoming immigration agents.”
The letter and model ordinance are a follow-up to a similar campaign the ACLU of RI mounted in 2017 during President Trump’s first term. This past week, ACLU Affiliates in New England filed suit against the President’s executive order purporting to eliminate “birthright citizenship,” a right guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution, and other suits are sure to come.
The full text of the letter sent to RI municipal officials
