The Hurricane and the Undocumented

NEW YORK TIMES (Blog)

By Lawrence Downes

August 29, 2012

http://takingnote.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/08/29/the-hurricane-and-the-undocumented/

As Hurricane Isaac continues its agonizingly slow crawl over southeast Louisiana, it is exposing one of the regrettable consequences of a broken immigration system – a shadow population of the undocumented who can’t or won’t seek emergency help. The authorities and immigrant advocates have learned from prior storms that fear can have a crippling effect on people’s willingness to flee a disaster zone. That is why they have urged the Department of Homeland Security not just to suspend its immigration enforcement during this emergency, but to make that policy highly public and official, so that families will not hesitate to enter public shelters or to just get in the car and go.

To its credit, after being pressed by immigrant-rights advocates in New Orleans, the department did just that. A message from Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Border Patrol has been posted on the D.H.S. Web site, distributed within the agencies and sent — in English, Spanish and Vietnamese — to more than 1,000 local organizations that deal with immigrants.

It states that “there will be no immigration enforcement initiatives associated with evacuations or sheltering related to Isaac, including the use of checkpoints for immigration enforcement purposes in impacted areas during an evacuation.” It goes on to tell state and local law enforcement agencies that if they are holding people in custody at the request of ICE or the Border Patrol – people who would otherwise be released because of the storm – they should let them go, after giving the feds a heads-up first.

This common-sense policy will be invaluable to immigrant organizations and rescue workers should evacuations, some of which have already begun, widen and become more difficult and chaotic. Especially when it’s inscribed on paper — something official that be held in the face of a gung-ho sheriff, police officer or Border Patrol agent who didn’t get the memo.

Advocates in New Orleans said they spent much time in the last few days trying to wring this policy and public statement out of ICE. They would be grateful for a more permanent statement that could be applied to future disasters wherever they happen – that enforcement will be temporarily halted, not just in the evacuation and sheltering phase of a disaster, but in the return and recovery period as well, to encourage evacuees to seek help. ICE says it’s considering such a move, while weighing the concern that criminals like smugglers might find a way to exploit such a policy when chaos hits. I’m confident that the department will be able to walk and chew gum at the same time — to protect us from canny smugglers while adopting a humane policy that saves lives of vulnerable evacuees when disasters strike.