Safe Communities Act

4/17

We of Mt. Toby Monthly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) strongly urge that our Massachusetts legislature pass, and that the Governor sign, the Safe Communities Act (S.1596, H.3052) which would prohibit state collaboration with the federal government for the purposes of creating a Muslim registry and would ensure that state resources are not used to enforce federal immigration law. We are called to love our neighbors as ourselves and cannot support the recent federal executive policies restricting immigration and accelerating deportation which put our friends, neighbors, and fellow human beings in unconscionable jeopardy.

The Safe Communities Act includes the following provisions:

●Ensures no state support for a Muslim registry. Prohibits access to information in state databases for use in any federal registry program based on national origin, religion or other protected characteristics.

●Ensures Basic Due Process Rights for people detained in state and local facilities for civil immigration violations. Requires informing detainees that they have the right to decline an interview with ICE agents, and to have their own attorney present (at their own expense) if they so choose.

●Uses police resources to fight crime, not separate families. Ensures that state, local and campus police don’t participate in immigration enforcement activities, including inquiries, investigations, raids, arrests or detentions that are based solely on immigration status.

●Prohibits agreements with DHS that deputize local officers as immigration agents, including county officers in Bristol and Plymouth sheriff’s departments.