Can Local Innovations in Immigrant Integration Expand Our Notions of Democracy?
This post from Harvard Kennedy School student Isaac Lara recounts a recent panel discussion hosted by the Ash Center for Democratic Governance and Innovation exploring local innovations in immigrant integration and how they might be expanding our notions of American democracy.
Co-hosted by the Harvard Journal for Hispanic Policy and the HKS Progressive Caucus, the event featured Kamal Essaheb of the National Immigration Law Center, Kica Matos of the Center for Community Change, and Carlos Saavedra, a local immigration activist. Moderated by Quinton Mayne, the discussion moved from discussing local initiatives aimed at integrating local immigrant populations to local law enforcement and the potential of national immigration reform.
By Isaac Lara
In the absence of comprehensive immigration reform at the national level, immigration trends are placing pressure on local communities to rethink how they provide public services during financially precarious times. Local and state governments have developed several innovative mechanisms by which to improve the ways immigrants are assimilated into mainstream society. These efforts include access to higher education, law enforcement, drivers licensing, identifications cards, and even voting.
By convening a dialogue between students, faculty, and several thought leaders in this area, the Ash Center for Democratic Innovation and Governance recently highlighted how our understanding of American democracy is changing to accommodate America’s newest visitors.
This panel discussion was fitting because it occurred on May 1st, International Workers’ Day. Recent discussion on socioeconomic inequality, which has massive implications for the returns of labor, has made the impact of immigration especially relevant in assessing the health of American democracy — the focus of an Ash Center public dialogue series of which the event was part.
State and Local Innovations
HKS Assistant Professor Quinton Mayne focused the panel on the reforms and innovations that are taking place at the local and state levels to enhance the empowerment and inclusion of immigrants.
Kica Matos
Kica Matos shared her experience in enacting one such local policy change. A former deputy Mayor in New Haven, Connecticut, Matos oversaw the creation of the groundbreaking Elm City Resident ID Card, which are aimed at addressing public safety concerns and creating opportunities for engaging immigrants in civic life. With somewhere between 10–15,000 undocumented immigrants in New Haven, local city officials were aware of the reluctance many of these people had in requesting city services. To reduce the stigma, they created resident ID cards, which served as a form of identification, a debit card, a library card, and even a way to pay for parking meters.
Significantly, Matos attributed local innovations like the Elm City Resident ID Card to encouraging undocumented immigrants to escape their proverbial shadows and engage more openly in civic life. But efforts to enact change at the local level can face political battles that parallel those facing national immigration reform.
Massachusetts State Representative Tricia Farley-Bouvier is the sponsor of House Bill 3285, which is currently winding its way through Beacon Hill. Dubbed the “Safe Driving Bill,” it would allow immigrants who do not qualify for social security cards to apply for a driver’s license. Farley-Bouvier was scheduled to speak on the panel about obstacles in securing the bill’s passage, but due to legislative duties was unable to attend. While increasingly common in other states, the driver’s license issue has been under consideration for some 10 years in Massachusetts.
Carlos Saavedra
Carlos Saavedra, a local community activist and founder of United We Dream, shared the story of his efforts to permit undocumented immigrants to receive in-state tuition in Massachusetts. Although multiple “DREAMer” bills have been introduced in the Massachusetts state legislature, all have stalled.
Saavedra attributed this failure mainly to the inability for local community organizations to properly mobilize people in support of such action. Applying pressure on local politicians, Saavedra argued, is key to winning concessions on the topic. Highlighting the economic benefits of in-state tuition for Massachusetts residents is also important to attracting wider support. Yet the nonprofit sector continues to divert resources, out of necessity, away from mobilizing to providing services and technical assistance to immigrants.
Unlikely Partners? Business and Law Enforcement
To overcome the hurdles that Saavedra and others have faced in mobilizing people in support of policy changes, some community organizations have begun to leverage the support of private companies so they can exert more influence on the main opponents of immigrant civic engagement. Notable figures in the technology sector, for example, are advocating for increased access to citizenship for undocumented immigrants. These changes, they contend, will help strengthen the labor force — especially for those working in the sciences. Could business therefore serve as a partner in enhancing immigration inclusion?
While Saavedra regretted not having done more to work with such companies, Matos shared one such collaboration. She mentioned that the failure of immigration reform in 2006 convinced the immigrants’ rights movements to engage in a post-mortem about their failures that year, during which they acknowledged their lack of influence over conservatives who may oppose immigration reform.
In response, the National Immigration Forum created Bibles, Badges, and Business, an effort to foster an alliance among conservative faith-based, law enforcement, and business communities in support of immigration reform. This example not only demonstrated the extent to which community activists must rethink their partnerships, but also the level of wide support needed to enact change in an area that is so divisive and partisan.
Kamal Essaheb, an immigration attorney at the National Immigration Law Center, expounded upon the role local law enforcement can play in immigration enforcement by sharing a short anecdote regarding his initial interest in the area. In the aftermath of 9/11, Essaheb — who is from Morocco — experienced discrimination by law enforcement officials in airports and other public places as a result of his name and faith, spurring him to want to enter immigration reform policy.
Kamal Essaheb
After graduating from Fordham Law School in New York City, Essaheb became a practicing attorney at CUNY Citizenship Now, a nonprofit that provides immigration legal services. Today, at the National Immigration Law Center, he advocates on behalf of immigrants who are concerned with access to legal status. He also provides technical assistance to outside organizations regarding state and local enforcement of immigration law and lobbies for the passage of immigration reform.
Asked about how organizers are communicating the economic implications of including immigrants in civic life, Essaheb replied that there needs to be more work done in clearly articulating the economic benefits of immigration inclusion without having it sound too wonkish or technical.
An important example from local government is the serious opportunity cost of local police enforcement of national immigration laws, since their resources are diverted to areas with which they have little technical familiarity. In-state tuition also carries immense economic benefits, while universal driver’s licenses are a public safety necessity. Communicating these benefits in common parlance so that they appear tangible must be a priority for immigrants’ rights advocates.
Professor Mayne followed by asking in which policy areas we can expect to see future innovations in immigrant integration arise. Matos, who is now Director of Immigrant Rights and Racial Justice at the Center for Community Change, responded that more work will likely be done around improving relations between law enforcement and civilians. Essaheb agreed, albeit with one caveat.
It is important, Essaheb noted, to limit the extent to which local law enforcement become involved in immigration enforcement. He cited increasing public resentment against the Secure Communities Program, a federal deportation program that relies on information-sharing among local, state, and federal law enforcement. In his experience working with local and state agencies, Essaheb said that many have come to perceive the program as a strain on local resources and a hindrance on their efforts to increase trust between immigrants and local police.
Watch the full May 1 panel discussion.
Slow Demographic and Political Shifts
These and other local innovations can be effective at assimilating immigrants, and many such as the resident ID cards in New Haven have been replicated by other cities struggling to deal with how to actively engage undocumented immigrants into civic life. A number of these local leaders have been encouraged and enabled to take action by the lack of federal leadership on immigration inclusion. Indeed the panelists agreed that each of their efforts stems in part from a policy vacuum in national immigration reform.
But efforts at the local level do not supplant national reform, which if passed would more effectively enhance immigrant inclusion and reduce the fear associated with being an undocumented immigrant.
Due to partisan gridlock however, there is little hope for national reform occurring in the near future. Likewise, it will continue to be difficult to implement local innovations, unless the stigma around undocumented immigration changes.
The panelists agreed that over time, increasing racial diversity in America would create the necessary political incentives for Congress to pass some form of legislation. Similarly, as more communities experience influxes of immigration, positive public perceptions will be formed regarding these new entrants. The Elm City ID Card, for example, helped change the rhetoric around immigration in New Haven.
As Matos succinctly put it, “demographics are destiny.”
Shaping a More Inclusive Democracy
In light of partisan gridlock at the national level around how to deal with immigration, community organizations have addressed the policy vacuum by enacting innovative programs that extend rights and services to immigrants. Notwithstanding the political hurdles in passing such reform, their efforts represent the kind of policy experimentation that is necessary to deal with the complex and nuanced issues facing America in the 21stcentury. Changing racial demographics will further boost the prospects of enhancing immigrant inclusion, which could stir enough momentum to “spill over” to the national stage.
It has long been said that the real test of democracy is how well it includes marginalized populations compared to those elites who have traditionally retained power. By developing programming for immigrant assimilation, local innovations are boosting access to decision-making processes so immigrants too can enjoy the fruits of democracy.
Enhancing equity in the democratic process as such indicates that citizenship is not a parameter that communities must use to dispense equal opportunity. Instead, local actors are creating broader ideas of who is entitled to understand, challenge, and engage with the pillars of American democracy.
Isaac Guillermo Lara is working toward his MPA degree at Harvard Kennedy School of Government and JD at Columbia Law School. Lara is currently interning at the Center for Court Innovation in New York City, where he is exploring ways to alter the local physical environment surrounding high-crime areas in order to deter violent behavior.
Originally published at www.challengestodemocracy.us.
