As DC Looks to Reform the Backlash Against Immigrants Continues in the States

Despite the Obama administration's promise to act on immigration reform this year, a backlash against immigrants continues to rage countrywide. One result is a growing patchwork of hardline state and local policies aimed at curbing illegal immigration.

Even immigrant advocates focused now on mobilizing for reform acknowledge their battle will ultimately need to go beyond a Washington D.C.-legislated fix. The backlash against immigrants has sprung up in neighborhoods and far-flung localities, and also needs to be combated at the grassroots.

"This isn't going to be over when comprehensive immigration reform is passed," said Tony Stephens, communications associate with the New York-based nonprofit The Opportunity Agenda, during an online meeting last week with immigration reform advocates.

In Mississippi, over 20 hardline immigration-related bills were introduced in this year's legislative session, according to the Mississippi Immigrant Rights Alliance (MIRA). Utah's hardline immigration law goes into effect July 1. In New Jersey, a directive that orders police to question individuals arrested for a serious crime about their immigration status has been abused, and routine traffic stops become immigration busts, according to a report released this month by the Seton Hall University School of Law.

In Alamance County North Carolina, Sheriff Terry Johnson's participation in a federal program that deputizes local law enforcement to detain undocumented immigrants has fanned a divisive debate on immigration and Mexican culture, casting a pall on all Hispanic immigrants, whether they entered the country illegally or not.

An Elon University study found that Sheriff Johnson was grossly underreporting the number of Latinos his department was pulling over, though he denied racial profiling. And earlier this month, University of North Carolina law professor Deborah M. Weissman testified on Capitol Hill about the same sheriff's "brazenly racist claims about Mexicans."

According to Weissman, Johnson had been quoted saying, "[T]heir values are a lot different -- their morals -- than what we have here. In Mexico, there's nothing wrong with having sex with a 12-, 13-year-old girl ... They do a lot of drinking down in Mexico." Sheriff Johnson participates in a federal program named 287(g) for a section of the 1996 immigration law creating it. Made most notorious by Maricopa County Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio, it's meant to partner police and sheriffs with the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency and bolster the country's ability to target transnational crimes and deport undocumented immigrants with rap sheets. Instead, critics say, it has become a favorite tool for rounding up Latinos and intimidating immigrant communities.

The federal program is also at issue in one of the get-tough immigration measures that's still pending in the Mississippi legislature (23 bills considered "anti-immigrant or anti-worker" by immigrant rights advocates did not win approval). Gary Chism, a Republican state representative, tacked on a provision to an appropriations bill that would require Mississippi's Department of Public Safety to participate in 287(g) ICE training.

Chism also added an amendment requiring Mississippi's Department of Corrections to participate in a separate ICE program that connects prisons with federal agents to track inmates who are immigration violators and funnel them to deportation proceedings.

Chism said he's optimistic that at least the corrections measure will make it into law, but the 287(g) proposal may stall since it's costly. He said the federal government isn't doing enough to control illegal immigration.

"We need to protect Mississippi and Mississippian jobs" from illegal immigrants, he told New America Media.