Elgin's Approved Initiatives
On January 22, 2008 The City of Elgin issued a press release to
announce that they are adopting the following initiatives "to Combat
Illegal Immigration".  They are:

  • Meet with Immigration authorities under the ICE ACCESS program to
    determine what federal services are best for the city.
  • Perform 100% screening of all foreign-born arrestees booked into the
    city jail.
  • Reinstitute the screening of all new hires using the E-Verify program.  
    (You'll recall that Illinois banned the use of E-Verify last year but the ban
    was temporarily lifted while the state is sued by Washington.)
  • Begin enforcing and auditing the city requirement that contractors hire
    only legal workers.

This is a big step for the city.  We are grateful for their announcement and
look forward to seeing these initiatives enforced.  

AFLA plans to monitor their compliance in these matters.
We are particularly interested in the outcome of the ICE ACCESS meeting.  It
could be significant (we hope so) or simply a rehash of programs we already
have.  As you know 287g is an ICE ACCESS program as well as the CAP
officer.  It would be great to see either of these programs implemented.

Most of all, we thank YOU, our loyal supporters who sent letters, e-mails, and
donations.  It was YOUR voices in large numbers that caused them to take
notice.  They could ignore Dave and Doug, but not 3,000 VOTERS!

Where do we go from here?
First, we watch the city.  We know there are all sorts of federal laws that
aren't being enforced.  We need to make sure these steps are taken by the city.

Thanks again to the city leaders for taking these steps, and thanks to all our
AFLA friends for helping!

 UPDATE (June 2008):  Click here for the report on these measures.