“Thisis our civil rights movement,” Saenz said. “I guess it’s our turn now.What the blacks did in the ’60s, I guess we are going to do in the2000s.”
For Enrique Bautista, a turning point came last year at a Franklin driver’s license office.
A worker took his Tennessee-issued ID and U.S. government-issued greencard and disappeared for 20 minutes. When she came back, it was to sayshe’d be keeping the documents on suspicion they were fake. Bautista, a legal permanent resident, was stunned. He’d never beenin trouble with the law. He’d raised five children in the UnitedStates, working hard here for decades.
But with no ID of anykind, Bautista would be unable to visit family in Mexico for Christmasor even leave the house without fear.
So, last month, he sued theTennessee Department of Safety and joined the ranks of TennesseeLatinos filing civil rights lawsuits against state and localgovernments. They’re claiming policies and actions are directly aimedat making Tennessee a less attractive place to settle, even for legalimmigrants.
Observers and the plaintiffs themselves say the suits are thestrongest evidence so far of a social turning point — a refusal to keepliving anonymously and in fear.
“I wanted justice,” saidBautista, a 60-year-old construction worker who lives in Franklin. “Ijust want justice … and to be able to get my license in peace.”
ADepartment of Safety spokesman wouldn’t comment directly on the casebut said, in general, it is the agency’s policy to investigatesuspicious documents.
Three major cases have been filed this yearalone: Bautista’s, one against Metro government over a proposedEnglish-only amendment, and one against the governor and DavidsonCounty Clerk’s Office over marriage licenses.
“No less thanThomas Jefferson said all men are created equal and are endowed bytheir creator with certain infallible rights,” said immigrationattorney Elliott Ozment, who is representing Bautista. “The reality isthat all people who are present in this country — legally orundocumented — have certain fundamental rights.”
There could bemore to come. Ozment said measures such as the state’s new IllegalAlien Employment Act and Davidson County’s 287(g) program — which giveslocal deputies limited authority to enforce federal immigration law —are driving ordinary immigrants to call the government on its promise.
‘Our civil rights movement’
For lawyer Vanessa Saenz, the turning point was a series of phone callsfrom people looking for help but unwilling to formally protest theirinability to obtain a Tennessee marriage license. When the same thinghappened to Saenz, a U.S. citizen from Puerto Rico engaged to animmigrant, she sued Gov. Phil Bredesen and Davidson County Clerk JohnArriola. She and her fiancé were denied a marriage license when hecouldn’t produce a Social Security card.
County clerks inTennessee have asked for a Social Security card since 1998, or, failingin that, a valid passport and visa. Saenz’s fiancé had only a passport.Tennessee’s policy was enacted as part of a federal initiative to makeit easier to track parents who failed to pay child support.
Saenzhas taken calls in her office for years from people in her samesituation. She’s even heard stories about a Kentucky judge just overthe Tennessee line who has set up an entire marriage market to serveTennesseans who cross the state line looking for a place where thosewithout Social Security cards can marry.
She hired one ofNashville’s best-known civil rights lawyers, George Barrett, and filedsuit, claiming the policy was affecting the ability of Tennesseeresidents to exercise a constitutionally protected right.
“Thisis our civil rights movement,” Saenz said. “I guess it’s our turn now.What the blacks did in the ’60s, I guess we are going to do in the2000s.”
The case came to an end in May after the attorney generalessentially agreed with Saenz in court documents. He instructed everycounty clerk in the state to stop denying marriage licenses to thosewho could not provide Social Security cards.
Will lawsuits spur change?
There is no doubt that states now are seen as the battleground forwhat could not be accomplished by legislators in Washington, saidJessica Vaughan. She’s a senior policy analyst with the Center forImmigration Studies, a Washington-based research organization thatadvocates for stricter immigration policies.
Vaughan said theunintended consequences of such policies around the country have begunto surface. But that is not a reason to roll those policies backcompletely, she said.
“No law or legislation is ever perfectlysurgical in its application and its impact,” Vaughan said. “That’s notcompletely to say that the ends justify the means, but it sounds likesome of these things … are more of a management problem than aconceptual problem.”
It’s tough to say whether the lawsuits canlaunch a major change in political consciousness among TennesseeLatinos, said Efren Perez, a VanderbiltUniversity political scientist. Most of them are new to the state,whereas other states such as California and Texas have amultigenerational presence.
Still, there’s evidence to suggestthat a 1990s-era California proposal that limited illegal immigrants’access to a number of public services — later found unconstitutional —galvanized Latino political participation and enhanced the sense ofgroup concern.
“The message that people who are behind thesepolicies — people who support them and people who pass them — themessages they are intending may not be the message that peoplereceive,” Perez said. “Feeling unwelcome does not mean that you aregoing to pack up and go home.”
Man refused to sign notice
For Bautista, who speaks only limited English, interacting withgovernment agencies is always an anxiety-filled experience. He went tothe Franklin driver’s license office in November 2007 and failed theexam. When he came back eight days later to try again, as instructed,workers took the cards and asked him to sign a “notice of documentseizure.”
He refused.
“I told her that I wouldn’t sign,that it wasn’t right,” Bautista said. “They are the driver’s licenseoffice. They don’t have the right to confiscate my green card, my IDmaybe, but not my green card. I told her I wouldn’t sign.”
In January, the office sent a letter acknowledging Bautista’s documents were legal. It asked him to come pick them up.
Contact Janell Ross at 615-726-5982 or jross1@tennessean.com.