Prop 36 will increase deportations

If voters pass Prop. 36 more parents will be deported, and more families separated over shoplifting and simple drug possession convictions. 

It turns out the retailer-funded ballot measure would not only fill our jails and prisons, divert money away from treatment and cost taxpayers millions of dollars, it would also make it easier to deport immigrants for low-level offenses. That will have a profound effect in California, where 46% of children have at least one immigrant parent.  

Prop. 36 would change state law to allow a person's third theft and third drug possession to be charged as a felony instead of a misdemeanor.  

That's especially dangerous for immigrants. Under immigration law, a person's criminal record can have serious consequences. For example, a conviction classified as an "aggravated felony," can automatically close most doors that might otherwise be open. In fact, just one "aggravated felony" causes a Lawful Permanent Resident to lose their green card. 

Prop. 36 would allow nonviolent theft and possession convictions to be treated as "aggravated felonies" under immigration law. For state theft convictions, a sentence of a year or more makes it an "aggravated felony." For drug possession, because the state prosecutor has to prove prior convictions, that triggers the "aggravated felony" designation.  

So a person who has resided legally here as a permanent resident for decades can lose their green card based on a shoplifting or a drug possession conviction and there is nothing even an immigration judge will be able to do about it.  

For example, an aggravated felony makes someone ineligible for a special remedy called Cancellation of Removal, reserved for noncitizens in unique circumstances, such as parents of very sick U.S. Citizen children. So even if a parent has resided here for over a decade and can prove their child would suffer unusual hardship--usually based on illness--if they are deported, the aggravated felony will take away an immigration judge's power to even consider allowing the parent to stay with their child.  

Aggravated felonies also bar asylum claims. Even if a person has proof that they will be persecuted in their home country, they too won't be allowed to present their case.  

Once a conviction is classified as an "aggravated felony," the damage is done. Immigration law will not distinguish between violent and nonviolent aggravated felonies. Nor does it recognize someone who has lived here for one year versus forty years. It will not distinguish a theft of food to provide for one's family from a more egregious theft. It will not differentiate an aggravated felony committed when someone was 18 from one committed by someone in their mid-forties.  

The designation makes it so an immigration judge cannot even hear the facts of a case to determine if there are valid reasons for the person to stay here. 

California voters have long recognized the byzantine and punitive nature of immigration laws and passed measures to minimize their harm. We passed a law limiting local law enforcement's ability to cooperate with ICE officials. We passed another that allows immigrants to undo a criminal conviction if they didn't understand the consequences of that conviction.  Prop. 36 is a step backward.

Prop. 36 will reverberate into immigration law in other ways too. Sending more people to prison means more transfers to ICE custody and more time in civil immigration detention, paid for by American taxpayers.  And immigration custody isn't like jail or prison. People convicted of an "aggravated felony" can be held in immigration detention centers for years, without the option of bail. They can be transferred to remote locations far from their families, and they don't get an appointed attorney if they are poor.  

This nonsensical result is not good for taxpayers, doesn't make us safer, and doesn't make for a more just society. 

Of course, you won't see anything about these immigration consequences in Prop. 36's ballot language. Prop. 36 proponents don't want voters to think too hard about this. They just want people to read the words "homelessness," "drug addiction" and "fentanyl" and bubble that "yes" box. They want the language of the proposition to make people think this is about "treatment," but zero treatment is ensured or paid for by the measure.  

Don't fall for Prop. 36.