Austin Mayor Steve Adler Participates In "Cities Day Of Immigration Action"

AUSTIN, TX — Mayor Steve Adler joined in a "Cities' Day of Immigration Action" on Tuesday with his counterparts from elsewhere in the country, all voicing support for immigrant families and comprehensive immigration reform.

During a late morning press conference call, member of the U.S. Conference of Mayors stressed the vital contributions immigrants make to their cities and the country as a whole. The mayors urged Congress and the administration of Donald Trump to focus on common sense reforms to fix what was described as a broken immigration system, while rebuking Trump's calls for a crackdown on immigration and efforts to ban Muslims from traveling into the country that have twice been rejected by federal judges.

U.S. Conference of Mayors CEO and Executive Director Tom Cochran opened the press conference call, saying that more than 65 mayors in 31 states, and counting, who have signed up to support immigrants and reform to provide a pathway to citizenship for the nation's 11 million immigrants.

"Today, we celebrate what mayors throughout this nation have done to give us strength in our communities," Cochran said. "We have witnessed turmoil with families, and we have been living with this for months now."

Along with Adler, other U.S. Conference of Mayors officials voicing support of the immigrant community during the press conference call included Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti, Providence (Rhode Island) Mayor Jorge Elorza, Anaheim Mayor Tom Tait and Seattle Mayor Ed Murray.

During the call, Adler noted he recently offered written testimony in opposition to SB 4, the sanctuary city bill before the Texas legislature that seeks to remove duly elected officials and possibly even jail them if they don't fully cooperate with Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials with deportations. Gov. Greg Abbott has championed the bill, an offshoot of his voiced priority to end so-called sanctuary cities not aggressively rooting out undocumented residents for deportation.

Adler also shared the city's previous move in increasing funding to Catholic Charities to provide undocumented immigrants with the legal services they need to fight deportation. In a related move, Adler has posted a list of legal resources for immigrants on his website.

The local efforts come at a time when ICE has targeted Austin with heavy sweeps targeting the undocumented, enhanced efforts likely in retaliation for the county sheriff's preferred focus on helping ICE detain undocumented felons rather than those without criminal records. A federal judge recently confirmed being told of the unprecedented ICE raids in Austin in advance that were fueled by the softened policy approach adopted by Travis County Sheriff Sally Hernandez.

Adler stepped away from a city meeting to make his remarks during the conference call. He noted Abbott's recent retaliatory move in stripping the county of $1.5 million in grants to Travis County community departments unrelated to law enforcement in providing community programs as a show of his disapproval of the sheriff's more nuanced immigration policy.

"Bottom line, I think that mayors build bridges, and we're certainly involved in trying to do that as best we can," Adler said. "For me, this is a public safety issue. Austin enjoys being one of the safest cities in the country. Our public safety professionals — our police chief [Brian Manley], his predecessor [Art Acevedo, now chief in Houston], our sheriff [Hernandez] — tell us the same thing that the big city chiefs say nationally, and that is that safety that we enjoy in this community is due in part to the trust relationahip that exists between our public safety officers and the community."

That sort of community policing rooted in trust of law enforcement yields a populace willing to assist law enforcement in solving crimes, without fear among the undocumented of having their citizenship status discovered and have to face deportation.

"We have victims of crimes who are willing to step forward because they are not afraid," Adler said. "That enables us to catch perpetrators. We have witnesses of crimes who are willing to step forward. Our officers can go into any part of the city and be welcomed."

But the current political climate targeting immigrants for removal has started to change that dynamic in Austin, Adler said, with anecdotal evidence of crime victims no longer feeling safe to seek police protection against their tormentors.

"We're now hearing anecdotally in stories in our community — I just heard of one domestic violence victim now refusing to cooperate with the DA's office in part for fear associated with the immigration issue," Adler said. "Bottom line is this is an issue that touches us all. As president George W. Bush said, these immigrants are Americans with us by choice. And frankly, we can't be the land of the brave when our neighbors are living in the shadows. It makes us a less safe community."

Adler expounded on his thoughts in a post-conference prepared statement.

"This is a nationwide issue, and a bipartisan one, that impacts us right here in Austin as well as in so many other cities across this country" Adler said after the conference call. "We say that we are a nation of immigrants, and perhaps nowhere is that more true than in Austin where one in five of us were born outside of the United States. At the same time, we have one of the best job markets and economies in the country. If someone wants proof that immigrants make us stronger, they should come visit Austin."

The U.S. Conference of Mayors has taken steps in promoting support for immigrant communities in the past. At the group's Annual Winter Meeting in Washington in January, mayors adopted a resolution calling for enactment of bipartisan comprehensive immigration reform, the continuation of programs that protect the temporary status of Dreamers, and recognizes the social, economic and cultural contributions of immigrant communities nationwide.

“This resolution is official policy of the organization, and as executive director, I intend to put the full force of the nation’s mayors behind it," Cochran said at the time. In their latest initiative, mayors amplified their message by using the hashtag #MayorsStand4All across their social media platforms starting on Tuesday.

The U.S. Conference of Mayors is the official nonpartisan organization of cities with populations of 30,000 or more of which there are nearly 1,400 such municipalitis in the country today. Each city is represented in the Conference by its chief elected official, the mayor. The USCM operates a Facebook page at facebook.com/usmayors, and a Twitter account at twitter.com/usmayors.

>>> Official photo of Mayor Steve Adler via City of Austin