Island immigrants and advocates are reacting with worry after a bill that targets undocumented individuals passed the U.S. House of Representatives last Tuesday, warning that some immigrants are already preparing to leave the Island.
The Laken Riley bill, originally introduced in March last year, and reintroduced for the 119th Congress, requires that the Department of Homeland Security detain non-U.S. citizens arrested for nonviolent crimes, such as burglary, theft, larceny, shoplifting, and possibly driving without a license.
If the bill is signed by the president, advocates warn of substantial impacts locally, with the Island relying on undocumented immigrants.
“I can’t imagine the size of the impact, but I know it will be huge and brutal, because many immigrants here have companies that provide work that generate the Island’s economy,” said Meiroka Nunes, community and social activist on the Island, and originally from Brazil. “These same immigrants who already have assets in Brazil, and are able to leave, are already preparing to leave before being deported.”
Nunes, much like other immigrants, has been in the U.S. for two decades, long enough that she has neither family nor financial assets left in Brazil, and worries that deportations could cause “unimaginable damage, such as suicide, depression, hunger.”
Named after Riley, a 22-year-old woman killed last year by a migrant who came to the country illegally, and was arrested and charged, but not detained, for shoplifting prior to the murder, the bill would change how immigration officials operate. It gained support from 216 Republicans and 48 Democrats. Rep. William Keating (D-MA), who represents the Island, voted against the bill on Jan. 7.
The bill could be a vehicle for President-elect Donald Trump, who has promised mass deportations across the country.
Right now, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials aren’t notified of minor offenses by local law enforcement, but this bill promises to allow for the detainment of individuals for nonviolent crimes, if passed by the Senate. ICE can currently lodge an immigration detainer request to local law enforcement after they establish probable cause that a non-U.S. citizen is removable, “typically after a court has convicted them of one or more crimes,” such as kidnapping, homicide, weapons offenses, and human and drug trafficking, according to the federal agency.
A local attorney said that the bill is a tragedy, and sees flaws in the proposed legislation. “It is absolutely shameful that the sponsors of this bill have used a genuine tragedy, the horrific murder of a 22-year-old American woman, as sheep’s clothing for their terrible agenda,” Rachel Self, a criminal and immigration attorney who was part of the effort to help the 49 immigrants flown from Florida to the Island in 2022, said.
Self said not only is the bill draconian and poorly drafted, but also has “absurd consequences” that will be challenged immediately, but not before they ruin lives.
To Self, a major conflict of the bill is that people will be held in detention after they’re arrested for, but not actually convicted of, a crime, and it has the potential to overrun an already flooded immigration system.
“This law absolutely should not pass the Senate,” Self said. “I hope our senators will do the right thing and stop this travesty before it unleashes complete chaos upon our immigration system. We all need to remember that the beneficiaries of immigration are American citizens and American businesses. This is a part of who our country is.”
The Senate advanced the bill Thursday, 84 to nine, as Republicans and dozens of Democrats voted to begin debate on the legislation.
“Our immigration system is also deeply broken because politicians love using it as a political football. Passing this act would make that problem exponentially worse. The suffering and the sheer administrative chaos it will create are unimaginable,” Self added.
The law’s mandatory detention requirement appears to apply to anyone arrested for minor-level crimes, Self said. This could include driving without a license, she added, which is a common occurrence in Dukes County.
Lynn Ditchfield, educator and author of “Borders to Bridges: Arts-Based Curriculum for Social Justice,” said she thinks this bill is a horror and a scare tactic.
After Trump’s first successful election in 2016, a group called We Stand Together, which included Ditchfield, petitioned to have a warrant article on the ballot of all six Island towns. The article asked that, in “keeping with current practice,” law enforcement and town officials not use town funds or resources to enforce federal immigration laws unless there’s a criminal warrant or evidence of probable cause.
Edgartown Police Chief Chris Dolby, however, said that the warrant articles were a moot point. They never enforced federal immigration laws anyway. When local police make an arrest, the person is processed by the Dukes County Sheriff’s office.
“We don’t deal with that end of it,” Dolby said.
Jonathan Searle, police chief of Oak Bluffs, reiterated that notion. “ICE is never notified about minor offenses,” he said. Local police do, however, assist ICE in the removal of dangerous criminals from the community.
“Laws change things all the time,” Dolby added.
It remains to be seen how this bill could change operations at the local level.
“The sheriffs do not make the law. The sheriffs enforce the law,” a spokesperson for the Dukes County Sheriff’s Office wrote to The Times.
Regardless of any changes, advocates are hopeful that current practice will remain in place. Ditchfield hopes that the Island pushes for whatever safeties are needed in the schools, and for the protections of neighbors and the community.
“Everything on this Island is based on the cultural impact and economic impact of our immigrant community,” she said. “It is of essence to be on alert.”
Carla Cooper, leader of the nonprofit, nonpartisan activist group Indivisible MV, said the hope is to get everyone on board to not cooperate with federal ICE. She doesn’t want criminals on the Island, but also thinks the separation of innocent families who work on the Island is appalling and inhumane.
She’s currently part of an effort to make a coalition that organizes all Island groups that are active on immigration efforts to collect available resources and create a plan to protect people in the community.
“It kind of feels like we have a target on our backs,” Cooper said in reference to the migrants who were flown to the Island by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis in 2022. She said that conservative arenas often see the Island as a poster child for liberalism.
Paula Reidboard, assistant director, housing coordinator, and Brazilian outreach coordinator for the Martha’s Vineyard Mediation Program, said she also thinks the bill is tragic. Reidboard is originally from São Paulo, Brazil, and made the Island her permanent home in 2020.
She doesn’t know if the bill is justifiable, for many reasons, and worries about the impact on the community as well as the financial strain on the country to detain immigrants on lesser charges. The cost to do what the bill requires, Reidboard said, should be used to invest in building stronger communities that avoid crimes and allow for rehabilitation.
“I personally think our community and our country is built on immigrants, and this sounds like you’re an immigrant and you’ll be punished,” Reidboard said.
For Nunes, the social activist on the Island, she said immigrants work tirelessly and are being unfairly targeted. “The country needs our workforce in various sectors. We immigrants benefit from the country’s security, but we also pay a high price by working hard and supporting the economy here,” she added.
“Since the Island is a tourist destination, I imagine there will be a lack of labor, for example, house cleaning for turnover houses, and also housekeeping for hotels,” she added.
“I really hope this law doesn’t pass, but I am completely in favor of convicted criminals being deported, and paying the price for what they did. Murderers and rapists must be removed from here,” she added.
“We live on the Island, and know each other very well; we feel trapped, because there is nowhere to go from here,” Nunes said.