Salem city councilors stood against federal immigration practices Monday, declaring an emergency over enforcement that has raised intense fears and concerns throughout the community over the safety of immigrant families, students and workers.
The declaration states that Salem – Oregon’s second-largest city – has observed federal agents violate people’s constitutional rights while increasing immigration enforcement in the area.
…The declaration does not direct city funding to support immigrants or those affected by immigration enforcement, something that people asked for at last week’s city council meeting and again Monday evening.
…The declaration did not cite specific instances where ICE agents or other federal authorities were reported to violate people’s right to due process or other constitutional rights.
This is another piece of performative legislation. It does and accomplishes nothing while allowing those who passed it and support it to feel good about themselves. It doesn’t even provide any details in the charges it makes. Nor does it allocate any money (which is OK because it’s not like Salem has money to spare).
Discussion by city councilors focused on a question Nordyke posed to her peers: Who has the appetite to do more?
The question followed repeated calls from people in the audience for the council to allocate $300,000 in city funds to people affected by ICE arrests and deportation. The specific demand came from Latinos Unidos Siempre, a local youth-led grassroots organization.
Any demand from Latinos Unidos Siempre should be reflexively opposed. I’m sure they fashion themselves as the potential recipient of these taxpayer dollars. (As a reminder, that’s the group that called the Salem-Keizer School District racist for failing to like a Tweet about an article in Teen Vogue that was written by an SK Latina student. I’m not kidding.)