The well-intentioned effort by Hartford Selectboard members to enact more protections for migrants has blown up in their face, leaving a residue of ugly discord in town. That doesn’t mean that the effort wasn’t worth making, or that a way forward can’t still be found. What it might mean is rethinking the approach and defining precisely what the goals are.
As staff writer Jordan Cuddemi has reported, the board first considered changing the town’s Fair and Impartial Policing policy, and then switched gears to drafting a “Welcoming Hartford Ordinance.” Both documents are highly detailed. Among other things, they prohibit involvement by town employees in civil immigration enforcement and restrict inquiry into immigration status and information sharing with federal immigration authorities.
The problem? Federal laws ban any state or local government entity from prohibiting or restricting the sharing of information on immigration status with federal authorities, a difficulty that a revision to Welcoming Ordinance attempted to elide by including a so-called “Savings Clause.” It states that, “This ordinance does not prohibit or restrict any government entity or official from sending to, or receiving from, federal immigration authorities, information regarding the citizenship or immigration status, lawful or unlawful, of an individual, or exchanging that information with any other federal, state or local government entity, pursuant to Sections 1373 and 1644 of Title 8 of the United States Code.” (Similar language is currently included in the Fair and Impartial Policing policy; the proposed revisions considered earlier by the Selectboard would have dropped it.)
The theory behind including the savings clause apparently is that if town employees are prohibited from inquiring into immigration status, they would have no information to share with federal authorities. Thus, the argument goes, the town could accomplish its purpose without running afoul of federal law. But a town police officer might very well come across information about immigration status in other ways besides inquiry, from something as routine as a traffic stop, for example. What then?
In any case, advocates for increased protections for migrants displayed their displeasure at a rancorous public hearing last week, which left the Selectboard at an impasse.
It appears to us that the choice facing the board is a fairly simple one: Sticking with the status quo, or committing what amounts to an act of municipal civil disobedience by dropping the savings clause. Simple doesn’t mean easy, though.
This decision needs to be informed by a thorough understanding of whether and in what circumstances Hartford police have shared, or would share in the future, information with federal authorities under the current Fair and Impartial Policing policy. That would be key to assessing how strong its protections are.
And any decision to defy federal law ought to be grounded in an analysis of what the goals and consequences would be. Would it be a symbolic act or truly have practical effect in affording increased protections? What would be the consequences of contravening federal law, and is the town prepared to accept them? If sanctions, such as loss of federal funds for policing, were imposed, is the town prepared to challenge in court the constitutionality of the federal statutes? And would the American Civil Liberties Union of Vermont, one of the parties that sought changes to the Fair and Impartial Policing policy, mount that challenge on behalf of the town?
The Selectboard also must consider whether defying federal law might give rise to circumstances in which town employees were put in an impossible position: making a choice between violating the town ordinance or federal law. A further complication, perhaps, is that the only sanction for violating the ordinance is to be determined through the town’s disciplinary procedures. Any employees so disciplined would surely have a strong court appeal if their defense was obedience to federal law in preference to municipal ordinance.
One alternative is that the Selectboard could drop the detailed, prescriptive approach contained in the draft ordinance and substitute a more general statement along these lines:
“The town of Hartford welcomes all those who live, work and visit here. We resolve to treat all individuals fairly and impartially, and to respect their personal dignity and right to privacy. To that end, the town’s agents and employees make no inquiry into immigration status and maintain no records if it is otherwise disclosed to them, because we hold that immigration enforcement is exclusively a federal responsibility. If and when town agents or employees receive requests for cooperation from federal immigration authorities, those requests are referred to the town manager, the police chief and the town counsel for disposition in accordance with the principles enunciated here.”
Whatever language they adopt, Selectboard members must bear in mind that words count, and they have consequences. What this evil hour in American life demands, and what all people of good will are called upon to do, is express solidarity with a group that is being subjected to a reign of terror directed from the highest levels of the federal government, and act so as to reflect the outraged conscience of a nation of immigrants.