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Minutes of Meeting on March 10, 2003
A meeting of the Immigrant Rights Commission (IRC) was held on Monday, March 10, 2003 at City Hall, hearing room 416.
I. Roll Call:
Members Present The meeting was called to order on 5:00 p.m., Commissioners Nwadibia, Gonzalez, Casillas, Gusukuma, Haile, Huie, Lau, Nguyen, Ribas, Tran & Zheng were present. Commissioner Ribas arrived at 5:15 p.m. & Commissioner Lau arrived at 5:20pm. Commissioner Tran left at 6:15 p.m. & Commissioner Zheng left at 6:30. Commmissioner Atay, Berumen were absent.
Invited Guests Sonya Childress, Active Voice
Kanwarpal Dhaliwal, Active Voice
Rodel Rodis, President of City College Board
Lourdes Anne Tancingco, Esq., Immigration Lawyer and Board chairman of the Veterans Equity Center
Others Present Dang Pham, Executive Director
William Chan, Deputy City Attorney
II. Approval of minutes for Feb 13 2003:
Commissioner Haile moved to approve the minutes & Commissioner Gonzalez seconded the motion. The minutes were adopted unanimously.
III. Public Comment: Sally Kinoshita from the Immigrant Legal Resource Center (ILRC), Deepti Sethi & Maximiliano Garde students from UC Hastings informed the Commission on Congressional consideration of the Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors (DREAM Act) and Student Adjustment Act. These bills will be introduced in Congress at the end of March 2003. These two bills would allow certain undocumented students to gain legal immigrant status in the United States and allows the states to consider these students as state residents for tuition purposes at state institutions.
IV. Soyna Childress, Active Voice, Director of California Strategies:
Soyna Childress & Kanwarpal Dhaliwal from Active Vocie showed clips from a PBS documentary miniseries titled "The New Americans." The film take an intimate look at the newly arrived immigrants and refugees from Nigeria, India, the Dominican Republic, the West Bank and Mexico and their adjustment to life in America by documenting their lives prior to leaving their homeland through their first year in America.
V. Rodel Rodis, President of City College Board:
Mr. Rodis addressed the Commission on his concern for racial profiling that he had personally experienced. He described his experience as follows: One night, he went to the Walgreen's store to purchase some items. He tried to pay for the items with a hundred dollar bill. The cashier checked to determine if the bill was a forgery. Although one of the tests indicated that the bill was genuine, she remained suspicious of the bill because it lacked the magnetic strip and appropriate watermark. The Assistant Manager examined the bill and concluded that the bill was a counterfeit. The police was called and he was brought to the local police station. Mr. Rodis requested permission to call his wife and was refused. The police spoke with a treasury agent who informed them that the bill was real after examining the bill. The officers apologized for their mistake and offered to take him back to Walgreen's. Mr. Rodis believes that he was arrested because of his race.
He would like the SFPD to train their officers properly so that what happened to him would not happen to anyone else. He informed the Commission that he has filed a claim against the City and will file a suit with Walgreen's for damages.
VI. Lourdes Anne Tancinco, Esq., Immigration lawyer & Board Chairman of the Veterans Equity Center address the current focus of the INS on enforcement & reduce services. In effect, increasing the number of INS raids while sacrificing frontline services:
Ms. Tancingo addressed the Commission on her concerns for the potential change in policy of caused by the integration and reorganization of the Immigration Naturalization Services (INS) in the Department of Homeland Security. The reorganization divides INS into two branches one dealing with services which is now called the Bureau of Citizenship & Immigration Services and the other dealing with enforcement of immigration law which is called the Directorate for Border and Transportation Security. Since the change, there have been mass deportations.
VII. Director's Report:
Mr. Pham informed the Commission that 9 of the 16 Tier 1 Departments have turned in their compliance plan for the 2nd year.
He asked the Commission to start planning for the SF Immigrant Rights Summit this year.
On February 27, 2003 Mr. Pham, Commissioner Nwadibia, Commissioner Gonzalez & Commissioner Lau met with Harriot Ishimoto & Soyna Childress at KQED regarding the video footage of "The New Americans."
On March 6, 2003 Mr. Pham & Ms. Loi met with Sally Kinoshita, Deepti Sethi & Maximiliano Garde to talk about the DREAM Act.
VIII. Report from the Chair:
Commissioner Nwadibia informed the Commissioners about the Neighborhood meeting on January 10, 2003. The Vietnamese community addressed the Commission, Supervisor Chris Daly & Captain David Shinn about the lack of language translation.
Supervisor Chris Daly has sent a letter to the Police Department & the Housing Authority regarding the language issue.
IX. Update the status of the Summit Report-Commissioner Lau:
Commissioner Lau is finishing the Summit report.
She asked the Commissioners to read over the draft report & provide feedback. So far, she received comments from Commissioner Gonzalez & Commissioner Haile.
Due to the budget, there will not be enough funds to do the copies of the Summit report, so the plan is to send out a 2-page teaser summary of the Summit. If they would like to complete copy, they would download it from the website or send us a request. As soon as the report is completed they would like to do a kick off with a press conference.
X. Backlash meeting-Commissioner Ribas: Commissioner Ribas informed the Commission about the meeting regarding the effects of the 9/11 on immigrants. In the meeting, the participants were suggesting ways to improve the Police's sensitivity to these issues. They tried to bring members of the Police Department to talk about these issues. They will be meeting every month. The Human Rights Commission is very involved in this meeting.
XI. SFUSD meeting-Commissioner Huie:
XII. Program & Access Committee Report: none
XIII. Policy & Legislation Committee Report: none
XIV. Finance & Operations Committee Report: none
Adjournment: The Commission meeting was adjourned at 7:10 p.m