Group views state as immigrant haven

Hawaii J20+, a grass-roots University of Hawaii group founded to resist President Donald Trump’s rhetoric and policies, is sponsoring a “Hookipa Resolution” at the state Legislature, aimed at making Hawaii a welcoming state to immigrants.

John Kawamoto has been spearheading the effort for J20+ in response to Trump’s executive order stepping up the deportation of undocumented immigrants. The thrust of the resolution is that local law enforcement agencies should decline to work with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in rounding up and deporting undocumented immigrants who have not been convicted of major crimes. Kawamoto said unlike states where Mexicans comprise the majority of undocumented immigrants, 50 percent of the 20,000 to 40,000 estimated living in Hawaii are from the Philippines, about 15 percent from Japan and the balance from Mexico.

“Half of the undocumented immigrants have been living here for 10 years or more, have children born as American citizens, so deporting them would break apart families,” Kawamoto said. “They’ve been working and living in our communities, sending their kids to school. They may be our neighbors, so we don’t want them to fear police” and not report any criminal activity they see to the law because they don’t want to be identified and deported.

Sens. Gilbert Keith-Agaran and Karl Rhoads of the Judiciary and Labor Committee introduced the resolution on behalf of the group, which is working to get it adopted in both houses, Kawamoto said. The legislation is identified as Senate Concurrent Resolution 104 and House Concurrent Resolution 125. Testimony may be submitted here.

The group is also gathering signatures to petition Mayor Kirk Caldwell and Gov. David Ige to declare Honolulu a sanctuary city and Hawaii a sanctuary state. The petitions maintain, “We believe in immigrant and refugee rights regardless of one’s status, one’s religion, one’s gender, or one’s country of origin. We believe that protecting undocumented people makes all of us more secure.”

J20+ is requesting that Caldwell and Ige refuse to prosecute undocumented immigrants for violating federal immigration laws; not use city and state funds to enforce immigration laws; and not detain suspects at the request of federal officials. Visit change.org to see the petitions.

Hawaii J20+’s name refers to Trump’s Jan. 20 inauguration date and beyond, but the group was formed shortly after the election in November. No one heads the group, but its Immigration Action Committee is co-chaired by Nandita Sharma, a migration scholar at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, and sociology graduate student Nathalie Rita Ewan.

Sharma said her group has met informally with Caldwell, who is reluctant to declare Honolulu a sanctuary city with the risk of losing federal funds. At an immigration justice forum March 11 held by J20+ and Church of the Crossroads, state Attorney General Doug Chin said he is more open to Hawaii becoming a sanctuary state, although he doesn’t want to limit what law enforcement agencies can do.

There are legal avenues in which to fight back against the withholding of funds, Sharma said.

About 50 regulars attend the group’s weekly meetings; half are UH faculty and graduate students, and the rest are community members of all ages. J20+ has almost 1,000 followers on its Facebook page and 500 on its email list, she said.

Sharma, referring to the uptick in violent crimes against immigrants since Trump’s election, said she joined the group because “I feel as an immigration scholar, I have something concrete to contribute and (try to) undo the damage. I feel it’s my responsibility to do something — I can’t just sit in the university and pretend this just isn’t happening on the streets.”

Sharma has been an activist since she was 16. When her family emigrated from India, her mother’s first job was as a farmworker, and Sharma helped organize the workers for better conditions. “I saw the damage done to people’s lives who were treated as if they were harming society instead of helping it,” she added.

“I’ve studied immigration long enough to know that often immigrants are used as scapegoats for every problem that arises,” solely for political gain, Sharma said.