Saratoga Springs human rights task force talks sanctuary status

PHOTOGRAPHER: Erica Miller

Human Rights Task Force member Diana Barnes addresses the audience Monday evening.

In a city that relies on immigrants to fill jobs in the horse racing and hospitality industries, Eric Lawson wanted a new task force on human rights to know that his church’s doors are open.

Lawson, the social justice committee chairman for the Unitarian Universalist Church of Saratoga Springs, told the new group Monday night that his congregation recently voted to sign the Sanctuary Pledge, joining 800 church congregations around the nation that have agreed to support immigrants facing the threat of deportation since President Donald Trump’s election.

The open doors are figurative in this case, as the Rev. Joseph Cleveland said in a press release that the building at 624 Broadway does not have enough space to shelter immigrants facing deportation. But he said the church is committed to a policy of “nonviolent resistance to efforts by the government to deport immigrants from our city.”

“I would appreciate hearing your thoughts on this being a welcoming community for people who are otherwise subject to deportation,” Lawson told the Human Rights Task Force during a town hall meeting in the third-floor music hall at City Hall.

The meeting, attended by about 40 city residents, served as the community’s introduction to 10 task force members appointed by Mayor Joanne Yepsen as well as a forum on human rights.

The members, selected from a pool of 35 applicants, are Diane Barnes, Judy Beck, Patricia Friesen, Hollyday Hammond, Margie Ingram, Brooke McConnell, Mehmet Odekon, Minita Sanghvi, Roger Sousa and Dora Lee Stanley. Yepsen said Hammond, who came to her with the idea last summer, and Sanghvi, will be tasked with leading the group.

“We’re going to encourage subcommittees of the task force and make sure everybody’s included,” she added.

City leaders have not committed to making Saratoga Springs a sanctuary city, but Yepsen said the task force will work to ensure that all immigrants feel welcome and safe in the city.

“It’s not a legal term. It’s not a legal position,” she said, citing discussions she had with representatives from the attorney general’s and governor’s offices. “It is a word that implies action, and we’re doing that here.”

Ingram, one of the task force members, said the congregation of her church, the Presbyterian-New England Congregational Church of Saratoga Springs, voted on Sunday to support the immigrant population.

“We will be moving very quickly toward becoming a space where people can take refuge,” she said.

Barnes, another task force member, clarified that a sanctuary city is different from a sanctuary church, which literally houses immigrants facing deportation, in that local law enforcement does not carry out federal law.

“That means we don’t ask individuals who are stopped because they have a headlight out what their status is,” she said.

Public Safety Commissioner Chris Mathiesen said Police Chief Greg Veitch’s position is that immigration enforcement is not a priority of the city Police Department. The chief has said that if Homeland Security requests the department’s assistance, however, the department will cooperate.

“The Police Department is not in the business of looking to find people that may not have their immigration status at an ideal level,” Mathiesen said. ‘We want to make sure that they can feel free in this community to not become victims because of their immigration status.”

City resident Judy LaPook, who serves on the civil rights committee of the Saratoga Unites group, called the chief’s position “an excellent start.” She asked the task force to research what more could be done to “fill in some of the gaps, perhaps to make it something with a little more oomph to it than the police chief’s statement.”

Angelica Morris, executive director of the Schenectady County Human Rights Commission, helped Yepsen create bylaws for the Saratoga group and also served as Monday night’s guest speaker. She noted that a group of residents has been pushing to make Schenectady a sanctuary city. While City Council members don’t support such a move, she said “they will work with our clergy, they will work with our groups to make sure Schenectady is a more inclusive, welcoming and safe community where everybody can come and benefit from the American dream.”

She encouraged Saratoga task force members to “continue to get involved and work with your law enforcement agency to ensure that everybody’s rights are protected.”

The task force includes Sousa, who coordinates human resources efforts on the backstretch at Saratoga Race Course, and Beck, a social worker who has joined with Sousa on the backstretch for 12 years.

Beck told community members that she is bilingual in English and Spanish and has a “close connection” with Spanish-speaking backstretch workers. As a member of the task force, she wants to help the track’s immigrant population embrace the community in which they live.

“They love Saratoga, but they only love parts of Saratoga,” she said. “I want them to love all of Saratoga.”