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Armenta on Repercussions of ICE Collaboration Programs

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Associate Professor of Urban Planning Amada Armenta spoke to the Los Angeles Times about increasing pressure to reform the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency (ICE), which has for years been criticized for its treatment of immigrants in detention. The implementation of any changes will fall under the responsibilities of the new director, nominated by President Joe Biden. Some advocates have demanded improved conditions in detention centers as well as the scaling back of programs such as 287(g), which allows for collaboration between ICE and local law enforcement. While ICE says the local collaboration programs are meant to promote public safety, the result is that many undocumented immigrants are reluctant to report crimes to law enforcement out of fear that they will be expelled from the country. Armenta argued for doing away with the collaboration programs altogether. When immigrants are afraid to engage with law enforcement, “that’s bad for all of us,” she said.

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Armenta on Biden’s Immigration Enforcement Plan

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Associate Professor of Urban Planning Amada Armenta spoke to the San Francisco Chronicle about Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden’s pledge to scale back laws requiring local police to participate in federal immigration enforcement. If elected, Biden plans to limit Section 287(g), which allows local governments to reach agreements with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to aid in enforcing federal law. Armenta accompanied police officers on ride-alongs in Tennessee during the street-enforcement phase of 287(g). Her book about the experience noted that most of the immigrants held for deportation were detained for driving without a license. “Ending the ICE contracts would mean that millions of immigrants would be less afraid that a minor infraction (such as driving without a license or fishing without a license) would result in their deportation,” Armenta said. “ICE is not removing most people identified through 287(g) because they’re dangerous. They’re removing them because they have the authority to do so.”

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Zepeda-Millán Finds Public Support for Releasing Child Detainees

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Associate Professor of Public Policy Chris Zepeda-Millán was featured in a Conversations with Changemakers interview about public opinions surrounding the current administration’s immigrant detention policies. He explained that “even before the COVID-19 pandemic occurred, jails, prisons and detention centers already had pretty bad conditions,” including poor sanitation, cold temperatures, inadequate medical care and dangerous overcrowding. Zepeda-Millán suspects an undercount in COVID-19 cases in detention centers, noting that only 1% of detainees had been tested but 60% of those tested positive for the virus. Before the pandemic started, one survey found that the public overwhelmingly rejected detaining children and preferred releasing immigrant children to family members or sponsors instead. Conditions have only worsened since the pandemic started, Zepeda-Millán said, and the public may be even more in favor of releasing detainees now that they know how the pandemic is spreading among incarcerated populations.

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Roy Reflects on Sanctuary Jurisdictions

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Ananya Roy, professor of social welfare and urban planning and director of the Institute on Inequality and Democracy, joined Society and Space for an interview about her recently published article “The City in the Age of Trumpism: From Sanctuary to Abolition.” Roy explained that her own journey as a “student of sanctuary” and its long and complex history was prompted by the 2016 election of President Trump and her subsequent participation in local efforts to combat the normalization of Trumpism. “I was particularly struck by the limited scope of sanctuary jurisdictions and their reliance on the authority of the police,” Roy explained. “Liberal cities committed to sanctuary status, such as San Francisco, are also sites of brutal practices of displacement and expulsion of the (always racialized) poor.” Roy identified the selective practices of protection and policing in today’s sanctuary cities as a “logic of liberal inclusion” that must be met with an ethics of abolition.

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Americans Reject Criminalization of Humanitarian Aid, Zepeda-Millán Finds

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An Intercept article about the upcoming retrial of Scott Warren, a volunteer with the migrant advocacy group No More Deaths, cited the findings of a national survey conducted by Associate Professor of Public Policy Chris Zepeda-Millán and Sophia Jordán Wallace. Warren was indicted on felony harboring and conspiracy charges for giving two undocumented migrants food, water and a place to sleep for three days after they made a dangerous trek across the Sonoran Desert. The survey found that Americans of diverse political affiliations overwhelmingly reject the notion that providing lifesaving care to people in the desert should be criminalized. Strong, bipartisan consensus on immigration-related policy is rare in the era of President Trump, Zepeda-Millán said. “At the moment of life and death that migrants in the desert often find themselves in, Republicans seem to be willing to throw undocumented migrants at least a momentary lifesaver,” he said, but added, “That’s a pretty low bar.”

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Outgoing Sheriff Lacked Political Savvy, Yaroslavsky Says

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Director of the Los Angeles Initiative Zev Yaroslavsky spoke to the Los Angeles Times about Jim McDonnell’s defeat in the Los Angeles County sheriff race. Yaroslavsky supported incumbent McDonnell’s last two campaigns but commented on his lack of political savvy. “He didn’t have a political calculus, like in how to show empathy for constituencies that are being squeezed in our community,” Yaroslavsky said. “The immigrant community was not happy about the way the department was dealing with its relationship with ICE.” The article also cited Matt Barreto, faculty co-director of the UCLA Luskin-based Latino Politics and Policy Initiative, which measured Latino turnout in the November 2018 election.

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