Hamtramck Passes Ordinance Against Profiling

The Hamtramck City Council passed an ordinance Tuesday prohibiting city employees from policing or denying services to people based on their appearance, immigration status and other factors.

Intended to encourage community participation among immigrants and minorities, according to City Attorney Jim Allen, the ordinance has been brought to the council on multiple occasions, failing to pass in past sessions because of reluctance among council members and confusion about different versions of the measure.

The ordinance, which passed on a 5-1 vote, allows undocumented immigrants to report crimes and seek city services without the fear of inquiries about their immigration status.

It also bans other forms of discrimination or profiling based on appearance, ethnicity, gender, manner of dress, national origin, physical characteristics, race, religious beliefs or sexual orientation.

Allen said that a similar measure passed in Detroit last year has not caused any problems for police, as exceptions have been specifically outlined to allow inquiries on immigration status and physical descriptions for the purposes of conducting criminal investigations.

Several civil rights activists and Hamtramck residents attended Tuesday's city council meeting to support the ordinance, celebrating its passage after weeks of anticipation.

Dawud Walid, of the Council on Islamic-American Relations, asks members of the Hamtramck City Council to pass the Community Participation in Local Government and Law Enforcement Ordinance on January 22.

"It's a win for the community," said Dawud Walid, executive director of the Michigan chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR). "And not just for residents of Hamtramck, but for people who work in the city, who drive through Hamtramck."

The measure passed after two council members who had previously opposed the ordinance, voted in favor of it.

"Originally I had voted against this, instinctively, because I felt like maybe we really did not have this problem in this town," said council member Cathie Gordon. "I guess I was being narrow-minded."

She said she decided to support the ordinance after getting feedback from residents and looking further into the issue.

"From what I've researched, it's a wonderful example of a good will ordinance," she said. "We all get along [in Hamtramck], but you never know."
Juan Escareño, of the group Metropolitan Organizing Strategy Enabling Strength (MOSES), who repeatedly implored the council to pass the measure and, along with Walid, helped organized support for the similar Detroit measure, said that Gordon's change of heart was a pleasant surprise.

"That's the beauty of democracy. It's listening to both sides of the story… We can't organize for people changing their minds," he said.

Councilman Alan Shulgon, the only member to vote against the ordinance, said that he takes offense to the idea that Hamtramck is not already a welcoming, comfortable place for diverse groups of people.

"I'm against it because I think we don't need it," he said.
Shulgon said that different generations of immigrant communities in the city have gotten along fine for the past 100 years.

"For some reason, Hamtramck had a way of adapting," he said.

Before the vote, he warned the council of a potential "financial disaster" that could come of passing the ordinance, citing the threat of state or federal legislation that would cut funds from communities labeled "sanctuary cities."

But Allen, who wrote the ordinance, insists that the measure does not in any way conflict with federal immigration policy, does not determine who is legal and who is illegal and would not interfere with legitimate law enforcement functions.

"This is the right thing to do," said councilman Abdul Algazali, who said he began working on the ordinance several months ago with the help of Allen and former councilmen Robert Zwolak and William Hood.

"There's nothing preventing police officers from doing their job. It's the opposite. This will help them," Algazali said.

Hamtramck resident Gregory Manore, a supporter of the Triangle Foundation, a group that advocates for the rights of gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered people, spoke to the council in favor of the ordinance at the public hearing, stressing the need to maintain the city's "welcoming, safe, tolerant" reputation as a community.

"It's a step forward I think as a city. It honors the history of the city of Hamtramck," he said.

He said he wasn't sure over the past weeks if the ordinance would get the support of the council members, "but the residents and the organizations really pushed for it."

Council member Scott Klein said that a change made to the ordinance makes sure that victims and witnesses of crimes being investigated could not be asked about their immigration status.

Klein previously opposed the measure, calling it a symbolic gesture with no real impact.

He voted in favor of it Tuesday but said he wished it had more concrete specifications, such as penalties for violations and sensitivity training. "I think it should have had more teeth," he said.

Escareño praised the ordinance for both its symbolic and practical implications.
"This ordinance at heart is a reflection of what kind of cities and what kind of communities we want to create," he said.

"When immigrants are fearful of being asked where they are from and do they have all their papers, it hampers having everyone participate in the process of improving the community."

Allen, who is Arab American, said that the ordinance serves to relieve undocumented residents of the fear of reporting crimes or other violations of city ordinances, such as living conditions they experience as renters.

"There are a number of people who are here, who may not be legal residents of the U.S., who are living under substandard conditions that go unreported to the city administration because to report, in the minds of some folks, is to open themselves up to investigation.

"I've experienced this firsthand in connection with some of the work that I've done in trying to enforce the housing ordinances," Allen said.

Shulgon said after the council meeting that he was skeptical the ordinance will put people at ease about reporting crimes, because, he said, the anxiety often comes from past experiences that many immigrants have of living under authoritarian regimes.

"You can never get that out of their system." He said he respects everyone, and takes pride in Hamtramck's diversity. "I go to the Yemeni store to get my chicken. I go to the Chaldean place… the Arab grocery store."

But he insists the ordinance was not necessary, and not worth the risk of Hamtramck being labeled a "sanctuary city," a term that supporters of the ordinance said is used only as a scare tactic.

The councilman's wife, Hedy Shulgon, who also expressed opposition to the ordinance, said she believed passing the measure was asking for trouble.
"I think it's looking for problems," she said.

"But now that it's there, it's there. Maybe if someone feels a little safer, that's great."

By Khalil AlHajal
Monday, 01.28.2008, 01:26am