Committee backs new sanctuary city policy

Council to vote next week on efforts to support undocumented immigrants

Edmonton is poised to join the ranks of hundreds of cities across North America in welcoming those with precarious or undocumented immigration status.

Council’s community services committee endorsed the policy in a 3-1 vote Wednesday. It goes to council for a vote next week.

The new access-without-fear policy, similar to some sanctuary city policies in the U.S., would commit city officials to only ask for the level of identification necessary. That would allow residents to access subsidized transit and recreation passes while they wait for status and not worry about being deported over a peace officer’s jaywalking ticket.

It does not govern how Edmonton police operate.

“This feels like us doing our part and not doing more,” said Coun. Michael Walters, before voting in favour of this move.

Advocacy groups said Edmonton’s new policy would be a welcome but symbolic move.

Many people caught in this issue are worried about being deported to torture or death, said Erick Ambtman, executive director of the Edmonton Mennonite Centre for Newcomers.

“A rec pass is not high on the to-do list.”

But the message it says to police and the province is welcome, said Sheryle Carlson with Sanctuary City Edmonton. Ensuring the police understand this issue would give vulnerable people the confidence to report crime, and the province could lift barriers to accessing health care and education.

More than 300 cities and counties in the U.S. have endorsed policies to protect or extend services to undocumented workers. In Canada, Toronto and Hamilton also have policies, said Zeina Sleiman-Long, who earned her PhD from McMaster University in Hamilton by completing studies on this issue.

People have worried these policies could increase crime or draw more undocumented workers, encouraging people to queue jump. But research doesn’t support that, she said. The majority of studies have found lower crime rates in cities with sanctuary city policies, and they have not found an increase in undocumented immigrants.

“It’s really difficult to live as undocumented,” Sleiman-Long said.

Advocates said most people in Edmonton with precarious immigration status came here through the temporary foreign worker program. Many left those jobs because they were being exploited, or tried to get permanent residency and ran into complications.

The majority are actively trying to sort out their situation, said Marco Luciano, director of Migrante who shared an audio recording from a single mother living undocumented.

She came to work as a baker in Toronto under the temporary foreign worker program, but left after the owner forced her and two others to share a small bedroom at his mother-in-law ’s house and cut trees on his farm in the winter with little equipment.

She got another job in Edmonton, but harassment by the store manager led her to quit. She applied for permanent residency, but had a child here during the 10 months she waited for an answer.

Now she has reapplied on humanitarian grounds, unwilling to leave her daughter behind or take her back to a life of poverty in her home country.

“Every time I go out, there is always fear,” said the woman, identified only as Lynn. “I’m not a criminal. The only violation I committed was to stay longer than I should but I did it for my daughter.”

The access without-fear-policy just formalized what the city is already doing, said Coun. Andrew Knack, who also voted in favour.

It’s a way to push back against some of the nasty emails council received the first time this concept came up, proving Edmonton is a compassionate and welcoming city, added Coun. Scott McKeen.

Coun. Tony Caterina was the lone councillor who voted against the move at committee. He wanted to hear back on Edmonton’s lowincome transit pass pilot project to ensure this didn’t cause other complications.

City officials said they expect the impact would be negligible. At Edmonton Transit, two people are turned away each month for incomplete documentation in a program that gives subsidized passes to an average of 13,500 people. The city is expected to have a full report on that project later this fall.