Anderson is living in hell. Ever since President Donald Trump’s inauguration on January 20, Anderson* has hopped from couch to couch of friends and good Samaritans willing to put the undocumented immigrant up for a night or two. For those 10 weeks, he’s been separated from his infant son—choo sing to be away from him for weeks, rather than risk being separated for a lifetime. “I’m not doing good at all. We’re in wild times,” he says. “I keep asking, how do we survive amongst all this?” by Marcus Harrison Green Anderson is living in hell. Ever since President Donald Trump’s inauguration on January 20, Anderson* has hopped from couch to couch of friends and good Samaritans willing to put the undocumented immigrant up for a night or two. For those 10 weeks,  he’s been separated from his infant son—choosing to be away from him for weeks, rather than risk being separated for a lifetime. “I’m not doing good at all. We’re in wild times,” he says. “I keep asking, how do we survive amongst all this?”  It’s a good question with no clear answer. In the last two months, Anderson, who asked to use a pseudonym for his safety, watched a deluge of federal acts explicitly meant to make him afraid: Trump’s vow to deport millions; Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrest of more than 33,000 immigrants; the detainment of Columbia student Mahmoud Khalil; the deportation of the entire family of a 10 year old who was recovering from brain cancer surgery; Trump blatantly defying a judge’s order to return 200 Venezuelan migrants from El Salvador; And heard government anti-immigrant propaganda broadcast on a local pop station.  And most recently, the Trump administration has expanded its anti-immigration agenda, calling for “enhanced vetting” to deport visa and green card holders that don’t support their policies. Locally, there’s also been the jailing of local Washington community members Lewelyn Dixon, a UW lab tech, and Alfredo “Lelo” Juarez Zeferino, an activist farmworker. And then Anderson watched in terror Wednesday as ICE agents raided a Bellingham roofing company to detain and then funnel 37 immigrant workers into the notorious Northwest Detention Center.  We are widely perceived to be a sanctuary state, and outside of Gov. Ferguson’s late-January press conference—an elaborate bit of Kabuki theater at El Centro De La Raza, where he signed an Executive Order ensuring that children ripped from their undocumented parents would have “uninterrupted access” to education—many elected officials have done decently in the protector capacity. Attorney Nick Brown recently sued Adams County for violating the Keep Washington Working Act, which limits local law enforcement from aiding in immigration enforcement. City Attorney Ann Davison also joined a lawsuit with other sanctuary cities threatened with the loss of federal funding unless they comply with immigration enforcement. (Though that’s been criticized as an election-year plot). And it appears that a bill allowing people to use paid sick leave to attend immigration proceedings for themselves or family members seems likely to pass the state legislature.  However, the state’s most profound impact is as a financial bulwark for our migrant communities. Lawsuits, marches, and proclamations are critical demonstrations of support. However, they’re mostly reactive, not provident. What’s most needed now, is financial endurance through choppy economic waters certainly ahead. “People resisting is good, but we need actions that aren't just one-offs. Immigrant organizations are so inundated right now, and we need more resources to meet the needs and remain strong institutions that serve as a counter to the right,” says Roxana Nourouzi, the Executive Director of One America. Her organization, like most serving immigrant communities today, has been overstretched and in need of donations. So much needs to be funded, including refugee settlements, citizenship initiatives, and childcare services. Washington must put its money where its rhetoric has been all these years. Community-based organizations like Nourouzi’s and the Washington Immigrant Solidarity Network routinely step in whenever state support falls short, providing critical services with limited resources. As needs grow, a stable stream of public funding is critical to bolster the networks these groups have built to serve immigrant and refugee communities across Washington. Cue the Washington Legislature this budget season. Last week, Democrats in both chambers unveiled their budget proposals, both, thankfully, include new revenue rather than rely solely on cuts. But this stance clashes with Governor Ferguson’s penny-pinching plan, which aims to close our state’s multi-billion-dollar shortfall with about $4 billion in cuts. As he put it, “We’re not going to tax our way out of this thing.” Ferguson once said that the Trump Administration’s, “disregard for the basic human rights of immigrant children and families is breathtaking.” Well then, those children and their families need an equally breathtaking counterreaction. To paraphrase the dead enslaver on the $100 bill, “Show me where someone puts their money, and I’ll show you what they value.”   "Immigrants are not only valuable community members to us in Washington State, but they’re also a vital part of our workforce and huge economic contributors. For example, they’ve contributed about $145 billion to our state GDP. They are taxpayers, and that’s speaking directly about the undocumented population. In 2022, they provided almost $1 billion in local and state taxes annually,” says Kaitie Dong, Senior Analyst for the Washington Budget & Policy Center. His reluctance to build a new, progressive revenue stream, and absolute dismissal of a wealth tax as “novel” and “difficult to implement” is all the more appalling at this moment. Our immigrant neighbors, friends, colleagues, and community members are under extraordinary attack by a Republican regime determined to eliminate them from this country. If we cannot rise now to meet this crisis with extraordinary action, then when exactly will we? It leads me to ask, what is the point of having a Democratic governor at all, then? “The Senate and House have proposed several commonsense progressive revenue solutions that would help protect the people in our state from massive budget cuts. The governor needs to center the needs of everyday people in our state by ensuring the ultra-wealthy and corporations actually pay what they owe in taxes,” says Dong. “If they don't enact these new forms of revenue, every dollar cut in the state budget is essentially a dollar taken away from our communities, which include our immigrant friends and neighbors.” A new report from the Washington State Budget & Policy Center released on Thursday showed that allowing the deportation of the 325,000 undocumented people who call Washington home would be an economic catastrophe, stripping $100 million per year from state and local tax revenue, according to the report. A further crackdown on immigrant communities would send shockwaves through the industries that feed, build, and care for this state—farming, restaurants, caregiving, domestic work, and construction. Given immigrants' essential role in our state economy, sustaining key sectors such as agriculture, construction, restaurants, and healthcare, Dong says Washington has a responsibility to protect and support an immigrant community that contributes far more than it receives, a fact mirroring the broader contributions of immigrants throughout the country.  “Immigrants are huge taxpayers in our state but do not receive vital social benefits, including Medicaid, including unemployment insurance. This community is being targeted and we have treated them unfairly for decades,” says Dong.  With the state facing a multi-billion budget shortfall, and the threats on higher education, Dong doesn’t see shoring up support for our immigrant communities as radical, or a lower tier priority. On the contrary, it’s one of the most practical things the state can do to not exacerbate its current economic woes. “If we were to deport ten percent of the undocumented community here, we would lose $100 million per year in state and local revenue. Contrary to dominant narratives, we would actually see job opportunities decline because immigrant workers actually help produce more jobs than they take,” she says.  This is why she supports the state Democrats’ recent budget proposals for progressive revenue, unveiled last week. Dong hopes it will do more than just strengthen programs that support immigrant communities; such as legal aid, assistance for newly arrived migrants, and support for unaccompanied children. She also wants a permanent expansion of health insurance for undocumented Washingtonians, and the extension of unemployment benefits they currently can’t access. As this week sees Washington legislators hold hearings debating who exactly should pay for our budget follies, and what communities will experience the most pain, it’s hard not to hear Reed’s rhetorical question echoing from every hiding place housing our immigrant community.  “How do we survive this?” Unless our legislators find the guts to tax the rich, they won’t. ...read more read less