Meeting Information

Full Commission

2009 2008 2007 2006 2005 2004 2003 2002 2001 2000 1999 1998 

Immigrant Rights Commission

Minutes of Meeting on March 12, 2007 at City Hall – Room 416

 

 

 

The meeting was called to order by Commissioner Sonia Melara at 5:10 pm.

 

The agenda was rearranged to begin with information items that do not require quorum while await the arrival of all guest presenters.

 

IX.       Unfinished Business From The Last Commission Meeting

• Visitation Policy – Juvenile Probation Department

Commissioner Escobedo briefed the Commission and the public with background information on the issue of the Juvenile Probation Department’s Visitation Policy for Parents. The language of the Department’s current visitation policy was believed may be posing barriers to immigrant parents in terms of visiting any children they have at the Youth Detention Center. Hence, Mr. William Shifferman, Chief Probation Officer of the Juvenile Probation Department withdrew the policy and invited its Advisory Committee to generate a new policy.

Representing the IRC, Commissioner Escobedo will suggest the Juvenile Probation Department to include in its visitation policy a general statement states that nothing in the Department’s visitation policy should be construed to interfere with the Sanctuary Ordinance of the City and County of San Francisco. Commissioner Escobedo also requested from Staff a copy of the most recent EAS Compliance Plan of the Juvenile Probation Department for possible additional suggestions to its visitation policy.

Further more, Commissioner Escobedo expressed concern on the adequacy of the Juvenile Probation Department in counting its children with Limited English Proficiency (LEP). Hence, suggested the Commission to closely examine the Department’s EAS Compliance Plan.

 

I.          Roll Call

            Members Present: Sonia Melara (Chair), Jamal Dajani (Vice Chair), Elahe Enssani, Deborah Escobedo, Vera Haile, Solomon Jones, Diana Lau, Felix Levy, Angus McCarthy, Samira McCoy, Toye Moses, Sam Ng, and Phu Nguyen.

            Members Absent (Excused):  Gilberto Alexander

            Staff Present:  Dang Pham (Executive Director), Marie Mitchell (Commission Secretary), and Michelle Hong (Intern)

            Guest Present:  Supervisor Sean Elsbernd, Board of Supervisors, City and County of SF

                                      John Travisna, President, MALDEF

                                      Bart Murphy, President, Coalition of Irish Immigration Center

                                      Celine Kennelly, Executive Director, Irish Immigration Pastoral Center

                                      Susanna Bogue, Immigration Attorney

                                      Robert Uy, API Legal Outreach

 

II.        Approval of Minutes

   The Commission believed the draft of minutes from the February 12, 2007 Commission Meeting was underdeveloped. Commissioner Dajani suggested Staff to further work on the document and resubmit it for the Commission’s approval at the next meeting. Commissioner Ng motioned and seconded by Commissioner McCarthy to delay approving the minutes until the next meeting.

 

III.       Presentations

Commissioner Melara extended her welcome to the guest speakers and the pubic. She explained that the goal was to invite inputs from the experts who specialize in immigration issues, as well as from the public on what does the Commission need to have in a comprehensive plan, if the local legislators are to support a plan on immigration reform to be sent to Washington D.C.

Commissioner McCarthy joined Commissioner Melara and expressed his appreciation to the guest presenters and the public for their presence. He also addressed special thanks to Supervisor Elsbernd for spearheading every kind of immigration issues from the City Hall.

a) Supervisor Sean Elsbernd, Board of Supervisors, City and County of San Francisco

Supervisor Elsbernd shared his experience on participating in an event on immigration reform on March 7, 2007. The event took place in Washington D.C. and was organized by the Irish Lobby for Immigration Reform. Approximately 200 San Franciscans and 4,000 immigrants from all over the U.S. participated.

At the event, he met with Congress members and their staff on the prospect for immigration reform. The meetings included with Senator Feinstein’s office and Congressman Lantos. Both were receptive and shared their interesting thoughts that shade positive light on the their feelings toward the issue. Supervisor Elsbernd also met with Congresswoman Lofgren, Chair of the sub-committee that will be dealing with the immigration reform issue on the House of Representative side.

Supervisor Elsbernd requested the IRC’s assistance to be an umbrella group in organizing the immigrants in the City and County of San Francisco.

 

b) Bart Murphy, President, Coalition of Irish Immigration Center

Mr. Murphy provided a brief self-introduction and general information on CIIC. He believes the issue of undocumented immigrants is a very diverse issue. The pros and cons on the immigration issue agree on one thing – the current system is broken. The system is arbitrary, absurd, and cruel, and is disconnected from the reality.

He requested the Commission to use the information it has to further influence the Reform. He also asked the Commission to outreach to Senator Feinstein and Boxer and convince them to make this issue a priority.

 

            c) Celine Kennelly, Executive Director, Irish Immigration Pastoral Center

Ms. Kennelly shared that the IIPC joined the Irish Lobby for Immigration Reform on the March 7, 2007 visit to Washington D.C. meeting with the Congress justifying the needs of comprehensive immigration reform. She believes a reform is the only solution; forcing out undocumented immigrants is not feasible neither is desirable. She also felt that the new Guest Worker Program is not the path that would work in the long-term for the immigration debate.

Ms. Kennelly supports the idea of a new worker visa program; one that guarantees needed immigrant workers renewable long-term visas, full labor rights, the right to change jobs, wage protection, the right to join the union, the right to close with family members, the protection of constitutional rights, and the realistic option of path to earn citizenship. Workable comprehensive immigration reforms must serve the interests of native foreign workers.

 

d) Susanna Bogue, Immigration Attorney

Ms. Bogue provided a brief self-introduction. She used ‘aging’ as an example to justify the needs of immigrants. Ms. Bougue believes the only reason that the U.S. can sustain is because of its growing population and ‘immigration’ is the key of the growing population.

In addition, she believes that the U.S. not only needs to open up to the undocumented immigrants, but also to the high-skilled people with advanced degree. Between 1900 and 2000, the U.S. had 600 high-skilled people, of which 400 were native born and the other 200 were immigrants like Einstein and others who came to this country and contributed their talents. Based on the population growth today, the U.S. will only able to produce 5 native born high-skilled people in the next 100 years. If the U.S. does not open up, the country will lose its competitive edge.

 

e) Robert Uy, Immigration Attorney, Asian Pacific Islander Legal Outreach

Mr. Uy briefed the Commission and the public on the mission of API Legal Outreach and addressed some pressing immigration concerns of the API communities – deportation/legalization and backlog of immigration process.

He believes the immigration reform can only be effective if it directly addresses the needs of different immigrant communities; a pathway to legalization and citizenship that does not burn with fines is needed; and ways to end the backlog are to be identified. He also believes that to resolve the problems the U.S. needs to stop the criminalization of immigrants and to contemplate means for legalization that will not seek to punish the undocumented with severe penalties. The society needs not treating immigrants as criminals, but as valuables.

 

f) John Travisña, President, Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund

Mr. Travisña explained that the top of MALDEF’s legislator and litigation priority is in the area of immigration. He shared with the Commission and the public examples of its litigations on immigration issue.

He highlighted the Citizenship Promotion Act, a bill that will put a freeze to the increase of immigration application fees and will provide community-based organizations that serves their communities with funds for English classes, civic classes, and legal assistance for people who apply for naturalization and general applications.

 

IV.       Public Comments

• Christopher Koraski, Honorary Council for Poland in San Francisco expressed his disagreement to a provision included in the proposed McCain legislation. The provision indicated that the persons who subject to deportation do not qualify for legalization. He believes such provision should not be overlooked in the final bill.
• Raymond Linel, a contractor and developer in the City shared his diverse working and life experience with the Commission.

• A student shared the Commission the challenges she has faced under the current immigration system.

 

V.        2007 Summit Planning Committee

            No report. Specific plan is yet finalized.

 

VI.       Committees

a) Outreach Ad-hoc Committee

The Executive Committee has discussed the dissolution of the Planning and Operation Committee because it was duplicative in terms of its activities and recommended development of an outreach committee to better involve the communities. The Commission approved the creation of the Outreach Ad-hoc Committee. In addition, the Commission accepted the Executive Committee’s nomination of Commissioner Jones as Chair of the new Outreach Ad-hoc Committee.

b) Immigration Reform Ad-hoc Committee

The Executive Committee also recommended creation of the Immigration Reform Ad-hoc Committee for the development of proposal for comprehensive immigration reform bill for the City and County of San Francisco. Commissioner Enssani motioned and seconded by Commissioner Haile to create the Immigration Reform Ad-hoc Committee.

Commissioner Levy expressed his concern on the effectiveness of the committees if too many are created. However, Commissioner Haile explained and believed the immigration reform is a much more complicated issue than we think. Thus, there is a need to create a committee to specifically handle such topic. As the result, all commissioners, but Commissioner Levy, voted in favor to create the Immigration Reform Ad-hoc Committee.

Subsequently, the Commission (M/S Escobedo/Enssani) appointed Commissioner McCarthy as Chair of the Immigration Reform Ad-hoc Committee.

c) Membership of the Committees

Commissioner Melara requested all commissioners must be members of at least one committee. She asked the Executive Director to forward the list of committees to the commissioners for their commitment by the next Commission Meeting. Each committee should have at least three (3) members.

 

VII.     Resolution/Support Letter

            a) ICE Raids and Sanctuary Law

            Commissioner Melara briefed the Commission that the letter was to commend the Mayor and the Board of Supervisors for their action and support against the ICE raids and to request them to review the Sanctuary Ordinance in the City and to begin to look at enforcement. The letter also requested that the employees and residence of City and County of San Francisco be educated on the Sanctuary Ordinance.

            The Commission (M/S Jones/Enssani) approved to send the letter as is.

            b) USCIS Fee Increase

            The refined draft of resolution was to urge the Mayor and the Board of Supervisors to ask the Congressional Delegation to oppose the proposed USCIS fee increase. In addition, the IRC will send a separate formal letter signed by all the commissioners to the USCIS Director attaching a copy of the resolution.

            The Commission (M/S Haile/Jones) approved the draft of resolution.

            c) Citizenship Promotion Act

            The letters to Representative Jan Schakowsky, Senator Barack Obama, and Congressman Luis Gutierrez were to support the Citizenship Promotion Act, a new legislation that would reject the drastic increase in the immigration application fees recently proposed by the USCIS.

            Commissioner Haile suggested the letters should be copied to Senator Boxer and Feinstein, as well as to Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

            The Commission (M/S Jones/Enssani) approved to extend the letters to the above-mentioned addressees.

 

VIII.    Annual Immigrant Day In Sacramento

Executive Director Dan Pham briefed the Commission that the 11^th California Annual Immigrant Day will be held on May 21, 2007 in Sacramento. This year the event will focus on the Governor’s budget proposal targets low-income children and families who participate in CalWORKs and the debate of California’s legislators on comprehensive reforms to the health care system.

Commissioner Jones motioned and seconded by Commissioner Enssani for the Commission to endorse and participate in the event. All members agreed.

 

 

 

 

IX.       Unfinished Business From The Last Commission Meeting

            a) Budget

            Information item. Handout was distributed to the members.

Commissioner Levy suggested the amount allocated for website improvement might be too low.

Commissioner Escobedo requested Staff for breakdowns of salaries and fringes.

 

X.        Director’s Report

            Handout of information was distributed to the members.

            Reminded the term-to-be-up commissioners to submit their applications to Clerk’s Office.

 

XI.       Committees Report

            a) Executive Committee:  Formed today’s agenda

            b) Program and Access Committee:  Chair absent

            c) Finance and Operation Committee:  Dissolved

 

XII.     Adjournment

            Commissioner Vera Haile moved and seconded by Commissioner Elahe Enssani to adjourn the meeting.  The meeting was adjourned at 7:10 pm.