We urge the governor to support making Pennsylvania a Sanctuary State.
The Pennsylvania Values Act will protect all Pennsylvanians by ensuring that state and local resources are not used for mass deportations, separation of families or to divide Pennsylvanians on the basis of race, gender, sexual orientation, religion, immigration status, or national or ethnic group.
The Pennsylvania Values Act
The Pennsylvania Values Act will protect all Pennsylvanians by ensuring that state and local resources are not used for mass deportations, separation of families or to divide Pennsylvanians on the basis of race, gender, sexual orientation, religion, immigration status, or national or ethnic group.
This bill would create "safe zones" around public places such as public schools, courthouses and hospitals. Immigration enforcement would be banned from these places and this bill would also require these agencies to update their confidentiality policies so that immigration status is not shared for enforcement purposes.
The Pennsylvania Values Act has not been introduced yet. We are urging our legislators and the Governor to move this concept forward.
Throughout his campaign, Former President Trump when he was in power he has publicly stated his stance against immigration, where he threatened to increase deportations and target the Muslim community. Now that he is president, he has issued a travel ban that targets Muslims and has begun the process of expanding the deportation of families. He also threatened to cut the funding from cities or counties that declare themselves "sanctuary." This puts cities and counties in a limbo, to decide between cooperating with immigration enforcement or to lose their funding.
This bill is important to the immigrant community because if local and state agencies cooperate with federal immigration authorities, the immigrant community will lose the hard-earned trust of our local agencies. Broken trust can lead our immigrant community to discontinue seeking services such as health services, educational services or they will fear to inquire for law enforcement's help if they are victims or witnesses of a crime to avoid being questioned about their immigration status.
