Immigration Victory in South Carolina!
By Jheanelle Wilkins, Field Manager
Immigration advocates achieved a great victory in South Carolina today!
Federal District Court Judge Mark Gergel blocked key provisions of the state’s anti-immigrant law, SB 20, that would have criminalized harboring or transporting an undocumented immigrant, authorized the police to check a person’s immigration status, and made it a crime to not carry identification papers. The court found that these sections of the law are likely to be held unconstitutional.
After the state’s anti-immigrant law passed in June, civil rights groups (MALDEF, ACLU, NILC, SC Appleseed, and Southern Poverty Law Center) were joined by the Department of Justice in filing suit against the SB 20 charging that the law is “unconstitutional, interferes with federal laws and would cause great harm in the state.” The lawsuit was heard in court on Monday, December 19.
For more than a year, The Leadership Conference Education Fund has been working with the South Carolina Immigration Coalition — a statewide alliance we helped form and continue to support — on a communication and grassroots strategy to amplify the voice of opposition against the law.
On Sunday, December 18, the South Carolina Immigration Coalition held prayer vigils in 5 locations spanning across the state (Greenville, Spartanburg, Columbia, Charleston, and Hilton Head Island) to show South Carolina’s faith community’s strong opposition to the law. I attended the Charleston vigil on Sunday, which was at capacity with 350 people in attendance. It was amazing to see a variety of faith and community leadership come together against the state’s anti-immigrant law. We had leaders from two branches of the NAACP, a Rabbi, Methodist leaders, testimony from community members who were already victims of racial profiling, and remarks from the Central Mosque of Charleston.
We brought the Latino community, students, Occupy Charleston, and South Carolinian families together Monday morning to rally at a park a few blocks from the courthouse and to march around the courthouse chanting before the hearing. At one point during the march, we crossed paths with the Lutheran, Anglican, Roman Catholic, and Methodist bishops who were praying outside of the courthouse for the law to be overturned, and the plaintiffs in the case standing outside the courthouse who are all members of our coalition.
Today’s ruling is an incredible example of the success of multi-ethnic coalition building and an important win in the uphill battle to protect people in America from anti-immigrant legislation that is being introduced in states across the country.