Bills focused on improving lives of immigrants and refugees pass during last days of session – OregonLive

Immigrants and refugees in Oregon will enjoy expanded protections and benefits from legislation that majority Democrats passed during this years session. And lawmakers are continuing to press for more policies and spending to improve the lives of those new Oregonians in the sessions waning days.

Bills headed to the desk of Gov. Kate Brown will make Oregon a safer sanctuary state, create an Office of Immigrant and Refugee Advancement and expand a tax credit for working non-citizen parents of U.S. citizen children.

But not all proposed legislation intended to uplift immigrants made it through the Legislature. Champions of immigrants felt a particularly stinging loss when a bill to guarantee legal representation to Oregon residents facing deportation proceedings failed to advance out of the House.

Bills that cleared both chambers ranged from policy updates to expenditures aimed at helping refugees get a better start on their American dreams. The most heralded change, which passed both chambers on near-party line votes over Republican opposition, will strengthen Oregons status as a sanctuary state in which state and local government employees and agencies must remain neutral while federal authorities enforce immigration rules.

SANCTUARY PROMISE ACT

The Senate gave final passage Wednesday to House Bill 3265, which will expand Oregons sanctuary state status, first established in 1987. The new provisions prohibit law enforcement agencies from denying services, benefits, privileges or opportunities to an individual in custody, on parole or on probation based on their immigration status, said Rep. Teresa Alonso Len, a Democrat from Woodburn, a chief sponsor of the bill and herself an immigrant.

Immigration authorities also will be prohibited from detaining a person who is entering or leaving a courthouse or traveling to or from a court appointment. That will outlaw what had been a longstanding but controversial practice of making arrests when people show up for unrelated court business.

It also will prohibit Oregon jails from housing immigration detainees. None currently do so, but some have in the past, and the bill means no jails can resume or start doing so.

The bill also means people who experience violations of Oregons sanctuary law will be able to sue to enforce the law, a first. The bill also creates a Department of Justice hotline for reporting suspected violations.

Oregon is safest when all Oregonians can engage with public entities, local government, local law enforcement and the local court system without fearing that their accent or skin color will result in different treatment, Alonso Len said. Oregon is safest when all who live here feel they are free to be part of their community regardless of their race, ethnic background or place of birth.

The 1987 sanctuary law needed updates and clearer guidelines, she said. Oregon voters decided in 2018 to keep the states sanctuary law with a 63% vote.

OFFICE OF IMMIGRANT AND REFUGEE ADVANCEMENT

Championed by Sen. Kayse Jama, a Portland Democrat and the first former refugee in the Oregon Senate, Senate Bill 778 creates the Office of Immigrant and Refugee Advancement.

Jama said he was motivated to introduce the bill, passed by the Senate on June 16, when he noticed that there was no office specifically focused on economic justice, housing, health care or similar high priority services for one of the most vulnerable communities in Oregon.

This office is really more about strategy than anything else and just creating a pathway of being a voice for immigrant and refugee communities, but also serves as a resource for policy recommendations for the Legislature and other government entities as well, he said. We want to make sure theres long-term strategy planning for the state.

Gov. Kate Brown recently proclaimed June 20 as World Refugee Day in Oregon.

The history of refugees in Oregon is marked by a struggle for equality, justice, and prevailing over the adversity of exclusion, prosecution, discrimination and disparities, said the governors proclamation.

EARNED INCOME TAX CREDIT

Under both the federal and Oregon income tax systems, an Earned Income Tax Credit helps subsidize low-income working families to make it feasible for adults with children to both work and care for their family members. But both have required everyone in the household to have a social security number to benefit, even if they worked and paid all taxes owed.

A bill expected to achieve final passage in the sessions final few days would expand the program to non-citizen working Oregonians who pay their taxes using taxpayer identification numbers, so their children can benefit.

Originally a freestanding bill, House Bill 2819 became part of an omnibus tax credit bill that largely accomplishes the same goal, said Rep. Wlnsvey Campos, a chief sponsor.

These Oregonians are investing into the system and are virtually invisible when it comes to a tax credit designed to help children of working-class taxpayers thrive, she said. I see economic (support) for some and the invalidation of others as a social injustice.

Most of the 90,000 citizens living in Oregon households consisting of both citizens and non-citizens are children, Leland Baxter-Neal, advocacy director for the Latino Network, said June 10 in testimony supporting the bill. Nationally, the Earned Income Tax Credit is viewed as perhaps the most effective mechanism for helping lift families with children out of poverty.

Its an unfortunate truth that many jobs pay too little for workers to make ends meet and support their families, Baxter-Neal said.

All workers, regardless of how they file taxes, should earn enough to be able to care for their families, said Karla Cruz, executive director for Fuerza Oregon Advocacy Association, speaking in support of the bill during an immigration-focused town hall on June 16. As an accountant, she said she sees how the Earned Income Tax Credit strengthens workers economic stability.

My values, morals and professional ethics have caused me to see the class struggle and how excluding our hardworking community from life changing credit can make or break a familys financial circumstances, she said.

REFUGEE SUPPORT

Senate Bill 718 would have appropriated money to refugee resettlement agencies, but it did not move past the Ways and Means committee. Refugee agencies are expecting 1,400 refugees to arrive in Oregon between October 2021 and September 2022, said Francis Kham, a community organizer for the Immigrant and Refugee Community Organization.

Refugees arriving to Oregon are often confronted with language barriers, cultural differences and lack of support, said Kham, who came to Oregon as a refugee from Myanmar in 2015.

The state is currently able to fund help for half of its refugees, said Sen. Michael Dembrow, a Portland Democrat. Although the bill didnt pass, $4.3 million will nevertheless go to fund refugee resettlement under Senate Bill 5520, which funds a variety of human services, he said. The refugee money is desigated to be used to extend case management and employment support services, he said.

Its critical that the state help to support this work financially, he said.

HEALTH CARE INTERPRETERS

After more than a year of medical emergencies stemming from the COVID-19 pandemic, House Bill 2359 will require health care providers to work with certified interpreters when communicating with patients who prefer languages other than English.

Rep. Andrea Salinas, D-Lake Oswego, who has proposed this bill for several years, said calls for racial equity gave her proposal more of a chance this session than in previous ones. Loopholes in existing law allowed untrained health care interpreters to do the work and didnt have accountability measures for providers who did not work with qualified interpreters.

To fully achieve health equity, we must remove the language barrier between a provider and a patient to get the best health care results, two leaders of the Oregon Health Care Interpreters Association said in their testimony in support of the bill.

IMMIGRATION LEGISLATION THAT DIED

A pilot program in Portland that provides legal representation for refugees and undocumented people facing deportation proceedings would have expanded statewide under House Bill 3230, which died for lack of support this session.

A $2 million allocation in a bill destined for passage this week will allow the Portland program to continue, Salinas said. But she said she is disappointed it will not extend to all immigrants in Oregon.

Its this continuum of care for our undocumented and our refugees who really are building their lives as theyre seeking to become citizens, she said. Having this type of support from the state for people who are actually working and living here as part of our community I feel is important.

House Democrats supported a bill that would have granted overtime pay to Oregon farmworkers a strenuous job completed in often hazardous conditions. Oregon farmers said the bill requiring overtime pay would have threatened their business and the states agricultural economy. A final effort to salvage parts of the bill was considered late in the session, but to ultimately failed.

Farmworkers were excluded from the 1938 Fair Labor Standards Act that allows other employees to receive time-and-a-half pay for working more than 40 hours per week. This Jim Crow era decision excluded agricultural workers, most of whom were Black, intentionally.

For me, this is about trying to reckon with that past and making sure we are building a future that is more equitable, Salinas said in March.

This story was updated at 10:45 a.m. on June 24 to reflect the correct number of refugees expected to arrive in Oregon between October 2021 and September 2022.

-- April Rubin; arubin@oregonian.com; @AprilMRubin

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Bills focused on improving lives of immigrants and refugees pass during last days of session - OregonLive