URGENT: Immigrant rights legislation in Washington State Legislature

Bob Zeigler, who has worked very hard for decades on immigrant rights issues, alerted us on Tuesday January 23, 2018, to the urgent need to contact the Washington State Legislature about some very good bills that would protect immigrant rights in several ways.  The Senate bill (SB 5689) and the House bill (HB 1985) are the same, so we need to push each bill through its respective body until they can meet and pass on the Legislature’s floor.

Here is what he wrote:

Keep Washington Working Bill 5689 in Senate and 1985 in House needs support now.

This is urgent and takes only about 3 minutes to do:

5689/1985 is the most comprehensive bill in immigrant protections requiring no state involvement in federal immigration work and in Sec 9 repeals some bad 1925 legislation requiring assistance with US Immigration. In Senate it has moved out of 1st Committee and is now before Ways and Means and if passes there goes to Senate Rules and if passes there to a floor vote. The floor vote needs to happen by Feb 2 and go to the House and pass through Committee, One of three finance committee and House Rules and if passes there to the floor for a vote. This vote needs to happen by  February 14. So Comment and requests for our legislators to support are urgent now. Sam Hunt, a Thurston County senator for most of us, is on both Senate Ways and Means and also Rules Committee and very important but not the only legislator who needs to hear from us. Please use the Leg’s link to this bill: https://app.leg.wa.gov/pbc/bill/5689 and enter your address, press verify district and click on your senator and two reps names. Then hit: “Support” and in comments section write: Please support 5689/1985 to protect immigrants and any other comment you might want to make. Finally hit send comment

Bill Summary:

SB 5689 – DIGEST Establishes the keep Washington working act. Creates the keep Washington working statewide steering committee established within the department of commerce. Requires the attorney general, in consultation with appropriate stakeholders, to publish model policies for limiting immigration enforcement consistent with federal and state law at public schools, health facilities operated by the state or a political subdivision of the state, courthouses, and shelters, to ensure they remain safe and accessible to residents, regardless of immigration or citizenship status. Requires state agencies to review their confidentiality policies and identify changes necessary to ensure that information collected from individuals is limited to that necessary to perform agency duties and is not used or disclosed for any other purpose. Prohibits a state agency, department, or law enforcement from using agency or department funds, facilities, property, equipment, or personnel to investigate, enforce, cooperate with, or assist in the investigation or enforcement of unconstitutional or illegal registrations or surveillance programs that target residents on the basis of race, religion, immigration status, citizenship status, or national or ethnic origin. Prohibits state and local law enforcement agencies and school police and security departments from using agency or department funds, facilities, property, equipment, or personnel to investigate, interrogate, detain, detect, or arrest persons for immigration enforcement purposes. For complete bill see: http://lawfilesext.leg.wa.gov/biennium/2017-18/Pdf/Bills/Senate%20Bills/5689-S.pdf

To see why this is so critical see 8 Min BBC video on immigrant impacts in Pacific County:
http://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-us-canada-42667659/the-missing-consequences-of-trump-s-immigration-crackdown?SThisFB

Thanks much.

About GlenAnderson 1499 Articles
Since the late 1960s Glen Anderson has devoted his life to working as a volunteer for peace, nonviolence, social justice, and progressive political issues. He has worked through many existing organizations and started several. Over the years he has worked especially for such wide-ranging goals as making peace with Vietnam, eliminating nuclear weapons, converting from a military economy to a peacetime economy, abolishing the death penalty, promoting nonviolence at all levels throughout society, and helping people organize and strategize for grassroots movements to solve many kinds of problems. He writes, speaks, and conducts training workshops on a wide variety of topics. Since 1987 he has produced and hosted a one-hour cable TV interview program on many kinds of issues. Since 2017 he has blogged at https://parallaxperspectives.org He lives in Lacey near Olympia WA. You can reach him at (360) 491-9093 glen@parallaxperspectives.org