Progressive advocates urge lawmakers to protect incarcerated, immigrants

More than a dozen progressive advocacy groups came together in Annapolis Monday evening to support legislation that they say would help create a more just criminal system in Maryland and protect the state’s immigrant population.

The coalition that gathered on Lawyers Mall included representatives from a wide range of both local and statewide efforts, from the Baltimore Algebra Project to the Maryland Second Look Coalition.

Other groups included the Maryland Youth Justice Coalition, Racial Justice Now!, Young People for Progress, Youth as Resources, the No Boundaries Coalition, the Silver Spring Justice Coalition, Students For Asylum and Immigration Reform, CASA, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the American Civil Liberties Union of Maryland, Jews United for Justice and Advance Maryland.

“After the election of Trump, Maryland state leadership began asking themselves, ‘How do we protect our state from the onslaught of attacks that we’ll get from the federal government?’” said Erica Puentes, legislative coordinator for Progressive Maryland, to about 150 in attendance. “We, the people, have gathered to tell the Maryland General Assembly that the least you can do to protect Marylanders is to pass these bills.”

The progressive groups cited two criminal justice bills — one that would restrict when minors can be tried as adults and one called the “Second Look” Act, which would let incarcerated people petition for a sentence reduction once they have served 20 years of their original sentence.

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“To me, that just makes sense,” said Zakiya Sankara-Jabar, co-founder of Racial Justice Now!. “It should be about the rehabilitation of citizens to come on back home and be pillars in their communities. That’s what we want.”

Niara Mollett, chair for Youth as Resources, noted that students who had the day off due to President’s Day decided to spend their free time at the rally.

“School is out today. We could be anywhere, doing anything – like sleeping until 3:00 PM,” she said. “But we are here because we know that Black and brown youth are overpoliced and disproportionately involved in the justice system.”

She urged the passage of SB 422, which would raise the minimum age at which a youth could be tried as an adult in certain cases.

“We are not adults on the street, and we should not be treated as such. If we made a wrong turn, our behavior should not be criminalized in the adult system,” Mollett said.

The advocates also called for support of a group of bills that would protect Maryland’s immigrant populations, especially as the Trump administration promises to crack down on the presence of undocumented immigrants in the United States.

Those bills span a variety of protections, such as blocking federal immigration agents from accessing state databases without a warrant. Another bill would set guidelines for so-called “sensitive locations” — such as places of worship, schools, courthouses and health care facilities – where immigration enforcement would be limited “to the fullest extent possible consistent with federal and state law.”

“The foundation of this country is built on migration. Immigrants belong here,” said Tracy Espinoza, vice president of Students For Asylum and Immigration Reform. “Our neighbors, our friends, our family are now living under threat of deportation and a climate of fear.”

She said that the bills to protect immigrant communities are “not just policies, they are a lifeline.”

“They are the difference between fear and freedom,” she said.