Advocates are calling on lawmakers to vote against legislation they say are harmful to the state’s immigrant communities.
At a press conference at the capital building in Jackson Wednesday, members of the Mississippi Immigrant’s Rights Alliance and supporters spoke out against more than a dozen bills they say violate the civil rights of immigrants and contribute to a hostile environment.
Shamira Muhammad
Advocates speak out against immigration enforcement bills, ICE in MS
“Immigrants are not strangers, they are our co-workers, church members, neighbors, farm workers, small business owners and parents of Mississippi children,” said Kathy Sykes, executive director of MIRA. “They help feed our state, build our homes, process our poultry, care for our elderly and grow our economy.”
The bills include measures like House Bill 481, authored by Republican Representative Lee Yancey of Rankin County. Under this law, Mississippi driver’s licenses would be limited to U.S. citizens.
“These are people who have paid thousands of dollars to fill out all the paperwork. They have been interviewed by the United States government,” said immigration advocate Mike Knezevich. “They have been interviewed, scrutinized, audited.”
L. Patricia Ice, legal director for MIRA, said the approval periods for petitions and applications for resident cards, naturalization papers and other materials she files on behalf of immigrants with the United States Citizenship and Immigration services seem to be longer.
“The climate has been veryintense, very difficult,” she said.
“I have people who went to interviews last year to get permanent residence with their U.S. Citizen spouses, and they haven't gotten an answer yet on their cases. That's very, very disconcerting. That's something that we've only seen under this administration. So it's bad.”
Local activist and founder of Brighter Future Community Development Antonia Macias doesn’t believe the proposed legislation will benefit the state.
“They should be taking the energy and the funds to fund programs for minorities, for the youth, for African-American citizens of Mississippi to better their lives,” she said.
“I think that the state-level bills are just a reflection of the federal bills,” legal director Ice said.
Another piece of legislation, Senate Bill 2329, or the Glacier Act, would provide grants to local law enforcement agencies that collaborate with ICE. The bill’s author, Republican State Senator Michael McLendon, who represents Desoto county, said grants could be used for training, equipment and pay.
“I'm not saying that ICE is coming, I'm not saying ICE is needed, but with all of the issues that surround this country that you see on TV, as well as our local TV, it's very evident that we do have illegal activity,” he said.
Last week’s shooting death of 37-year-old ICU nurse Alex Pretti in Minneapolis by two ICE agents became a political flashpoint on the agency’s enforcement strategies. The Department of Justice has now opened a civil rights investigation into Pretti’s death. The death of 37-year-old Renee Good in the same city had previously sparked widespread protests and outrage.
In an additional statement, McLendon called the death of Pretti in Minnesota a “tragedy.”
“A human being is gone, a family is grieving, and that deserves respect. My prayers are with them,” he wrote, adding that he does support immigration enforcement.
“This does not mean a person ‘deserved’ to die,” he wrote. “It means actions carry foreseeable risks, and pretending otherwise helps no one. Law enforcement encounters are not abstract debates. They are moments where seconds, misinterpretation, and escalation matter.”
The Trump administration recently announced its intention to scale back immigration enforcement efforts in Minnesota through the use of collaborations with local law enforcement agencies. Thursday, Senate Democrats reached an agreement with Republicans to fund the Department of Homeland Security for only two weeks.
Last week, Ranking Member of the Committee on Homeland Security Democratic Congressman Bennie Thompson, who represents Mississippi’s second district, wrote on social media that he would not be voting for the funding.
“I cannot – in good conscience – vote to send another dime to CBP and ICE as they terrorize our communities and sully the constitution. ” he said.
A small group of activists delivered a letter to Republican Senator Roger Wicker’s office last week asking him not to support ICE enforcement in Mississippi. That day, the letter had amassed more than 160 signatures.
Wicker’s office did not respond to a request for comment.
The next week, after the killing of Pretti, the number of signatures on the letter had risen to 350.
Advocates have also raised the alarm about a Byhalia warehouse that is potentially being considered for an ICE facility.
“I mentioned the fact that we really did not want a warehouse near Byhalia to be turned into an ICE detention center, bringing ICE into Mississippi in a way that I was really concerned about,” said Elise Smith, an advocate who delivered the letter to Wicker’s office.
According to the Washington Post, the Trump administration is looking to transform warehouses in at least eight states into ICE detention centers, with plans to open some as early as April. It is unclear how these industrial spaces will be transformed to accommodate detainees.
Last December, 39-year-old undocumented immigrant Delvin Francisco Rodriguez, a national of Nicaragua, was pronounced dead in the state’s Natchez ICE detention center.
In 2019, Mississippi was the site of the largest single-state workplace immigration raid in the U.S. and the largest raid of President Trump’s first term, resulting in 680 people being detained.
Activists are planning to demonstrate in Tupelo, Hernando and Jackson Saturday.