Proposed amendments to ‘Safe and Welcoming’ ordinance move forward

A Unified Government committee on Monday night moved forward a proposal to amend the Kansas City, Kansas, ordinance for a “Safe and Welcoming” community.

The amendments now can move forward to a full UG Commission meeting. The UG is trying to bring its ordinance into compliance with a new state law.

The amendments to the ordinance were proposed because the Kansas Legislature passed a law blocking parts of the UG’s earlier Safe and Welcoming ordinance, according to Casey Meyer of the UG’s legal department. The new law blocked the UG from prohibiting law enforcement from turning over information to federal immigration authorities. That part of the UG ordinance has been removed in the amended version that is being considered.

However, members of the Safe and Welcoming Coalition, which advocated for the ordinance, said on Monday night that they could not support these new amendments without having a meeting first of the coalition. They asked for more time.

Karla Juarez, executive director of Advocates for Immigrant Rights and Reconciliation, said the biggest part of the protection piece of the Safe and Welcoming ordinance is going away because of House Bill 2717.

At the UG committee meeting Monday, she said this could make it potentially unsafe for some community members.

Juarez said if the UG chooses to go the route of administering the ID program, it would be expensive, and personal information would not be kept private, therefore becoming a danger to community members.

It took the commission five years to pass a Safe and Welcoming ordinance, working in collaboration with the Safe and Welcoming Coalition, and it is too fast to make a decision on either of two options presented Monday, Juarez said. She asked the committee to delay its vote.

Judy Ancel, president of the Cross Border Network, also a member of the Safe and Welcoming Coalition, said at the committee meeting that she agreed with Juarez.

UG commissioners had wondered at the meeting if they would get any outside applicants now for an ID program, or if the UG would have to do the ID program itself. Ancel named a possible private contractor for the ID program who was outside the city and who does similar ID programs throughout the nation. Ancel thought they could still get applicants for an outside contractor to run the program.

The reason the coalition wants to delay the vote was so they could have a chance to meet, she said.

“Frankly, the members of the Safe and Welcoming Coalition were extremely traumatized by what happened in the Kansas Legislature,” Ancel said. The coalition hasn’t met since the bill was passed and signed into law, she added.

Ancel said she was absolutely opposed to the UG administering any type of ID program under this ordinance.

As an example, Ancel said if an undocumented person with no ID currently gets a community ID with an address on it, that person could be stopped by the police for jaywalking or some other reason, and have to divulge the person’s address through the ID.

It’s not the current practice of the police or sheriff’s departments to inform on immigrants to the federal immigration authorities, but that is not prohibited by the revised UG ordinance, she said.

If the city has that personal information, it’s even worse, Ancel said.

“We really have doubts about whether this program will be popular with the immigrant community, because of House Bill 2717,” she said.

She said the coalition could try to meet and get back to the UG with their response in about 10 days.

The UG committee, however, did not postpone its vote, as it was trying to amend the ordinance and get it done by July 1, when the state law goes into effect. After approval by a committee, the ordinance goes to the full commission for approval. The UG Commission meets on June 9 and June 30. Commissioners felt there would be time for the coalition to meet and then give their response at a full UG Commission meeting.

Commissioner Harold Johnson proposed to amend the proposed amendments to allow the ID program to be administered only by an outside nonprofit group, a 501c3 as originally proposed, and not the UG.

Meyer provided two drafts of amendments for the commission to consider. The first removed any section of the UG ordinance that conflicted with the state law.

The second draft resolved conflicts as well as addressed some commissioners’ concerns from an earlier UG meeting, she said. She had included an option for the administrator of the ID program to be the UG or an outside nonprofit contractor.

Commissioner Christian Ramirez said he remembered a consensus of a committee that the UG should not operate the ID program because of the annual cost behind it.

“I don’t like opening the door for a city department to operate it,” he said. The committee already had been talking about finding extra funds for the sidewalk program, he said, and now if the ID program was operated by the UG, they would have to find more funds for it.

Some of the other, non-controversial amendments proposed, according to Meyer, included a definition added for the program administrator; an expiration term of two years for the ID card; a provision requiring persons to surrender the community ID card when it expires or when the person no longer lives in the county; documentation that was more specific; a section clarifying implementation and acceptance by city departments; the administrator would have the ability to suspend or revoke the cards; and an annual audit would be required or audits would be conducted at the request of the mayor to determine if they are complying with requirements.

At a UG meeting a few years ago, information was presented that estimated the ID program would cost $180,000 to $250,000, according to the UG.