How Local Governments Are Hacking Immigration Reform

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via How Local Governments Are Hacking Immigration Reform – Spencer Amdur – The Atlantic.

Only the federal government can grant amnesty. But cities and counties can effectively opt to stop deportations—and increasingly, they are.

SPENCER AMDUR MAY 13 2014

States and cities are taking immigration reform into their own hands. With prospects for comprehensive legislation bleak in Washington, local governments have begun making decisions about who gets deported and who doesn’t by refusing to participate in a system that has come to rely on them. After a few years of slow but steady progress, local reform is now taking off.

In the last three weeks, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Denver, and counties in Oregon, Colorado, Washington, and California have announced they will no longer help federal immigration police carry out deportations. These decisions, spurred by recent federal-court rulings, add to the growing chorus of state and local governments that have recently…

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