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Shawn Vestal: True threat isn’t ‘other’; it’s those who fear others

What is the biggest threat to Spokane’s future?

Politicians inciting riot? Profiteers destroying civil society? Ben Stuckart’s “dirty smear” on the Spokane Municipal Code, and the rest of the City Council majority’s “lawlessness”?

Or is it – once again, as always – “the other”?

Many white Americans – too many – have arrived at a hysterical, ignorant moment regarding “the other,” from those who dream of deporting 11 million undocumented immigrants to those whose sympathies in Ferguson, Missouri, are limited to cops and storefronts, with none for the dead. Dog-whistle bigotry flourishes, and coded racism – from “thug” rhetoric to ignorant insinuations about “black on black” crime – is having a self-confident resurgence. A large part of this is shrill immigration paranoia, in which racial hostility finds full expression in dehumanizing and grotesquely exaggerated complaints about “illegals.”

Now comes an attempt at a Spokane ballot initiative that seems to ask: Shall we all hyperventilate together?

A group calling itself Respect Spokane is gathering signatures for a measure that would rescind a new rule directing police not to inquire about immigration status. The group’s announcement is a masterpiece of huffing and puffing; it declares its goal is to “demolish” the ordinance, to defend “civil society,” and to protect the majority of citizens from politicians who “incite riot and betray their oaths of office.”

“Honest citizens demand retraction of ‘sanctuary’ invitation to thousands additional illegal aliens who will interlope employment, housing, classrooms, medical care, food stamps and tax credits,” the group’s announcement says.

What is the cause of all this potential interlopement? It started with a Spokane Police Department policy that states, “the immigration status of individuals alone is not a matter for police action.” On Oct. 27, the City Council formalized this policy in the Municipal Code, passing an ordinance that said, “no Spokane city officer or employee shall inquire into the immigration status of any person, or engage in activities designed to ascertain the immigration status of any person.”

The reasons for this are sound. Local police are not federal immigration officers. It is in their interest and ours that anyone who witnesses a crime or is a victim of one will come forward and provide information. This is true even if the witness or victim is here illegally. Perhaps more importantly, this is true even if someone – someone with, say, brown skin or a Hispanic heritage – is here legally, is a citizen, and may have some kind of disinclination to forfeit their Fourth Amendment right not to be treated as guilty until proven innocent.

In 2009, the Police Foundation, a national organization dedicated to improving police work, concluded that it makes no financial or practical sense for local police to enforce federal immigration laws. The report also urged more federal action on immigration concerns.

“Police executives have felt torn between a desire to be helpful and cooperative with federal immigration authorities and a concern that their participation in immigration enforcement efforts will undo the gains they have achieved through community-oriented policing practices directed at gaining the trust and cooperation of immigrant communities,” the foundation president, Hubert Williams, said in a statement. “As one police chief pointed out during the project, ‘How do you police a community that will not talk to you?’ ”

Opponents of the city ordinance call it a “sanctuary” measure. Lest you mistakenly think they’re using that word in the positive, religious sense – a sacred place, a safe haven – be assured they’re not. The new municipal ordinance, they say, puts cops at risk, and will lead to a flood of lawsuits against the city as “newly ‘sanctuaried’ immigrants commit crime against person and property.”

Respect Spokane cites some high-ball estimates to make its case – state taxpayers spend $2.7 billion a year on illegal aliens, according to the group Federation for American Immigration Reform. But estimating the financial impact of illegal immigration is difficult, and estimates vary wildly. That one’s way up there.

The Congressional Budget Office analyzed 29 studies of this in 2007, concluding that, “Although it is difficult to obtain precise estimates of the net impact of the unauthorized population on state and local budgets, that impact is most likely modest.”

But never mind. Just think of the other. Those others. And be very afraid of them.

The City Council meeting on Oct. 27, when the ordinance was adopted, put this kind of thinking on clear display. Anti-sanctuary speakers tried to outdo each other with sheer xenophobic panic. Immigrants were painted as diseased animals without conscience, as impulsive criminal rioters, as tax-gobbling murderers. Some of these speakers managed to cram terrorism, Ebola and the Mexican border into a single terrified narrative – a bigoted theory of everything.

It reminded me of the time, a few years back, when Republicans in Bonner County decided to “Stand with Arizona” by objecting to the word “fiesta” in the theme of the county fair.

Sometimes, people simply know too little to know how little they know.

Shawn Vestal can be reached at (509) 459-5431 or shawnv@spokesman.com. Follow him on Twitter at @vestal13.

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