KANSAS CITY, Kan. — Local groups who work with immigrants and other undocumented people are calling out Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly after she signed a bill clamping down on local efforts to help those groups.
"It's incredibly short sighted. It's bad politics and it's bad policy," Marcus Winn, director of voter engagement at More2 said. "The state law targets, demonizes and incentivizes local law enforcement to actually turn folks in."
More2 is one of the groups who has rallied over the last few years in support of the "Safe and Welcoming Act" in Wyandotte County.
It passed in February and would have provided municipal ID cards to immigrants and prevented local law enforcement from cooperating with Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Similar measures are in place in Lawrence and in Roeland Park, whose attorney is now assessing how they'll move forward.
"We should expect that there is a measurable multiple point bump in crime in Kansas because of this bill," Winn said. "Many families who witnessed crime will not report it because HB 2717."
The Republican-backed bill also says a local IDs can't be used to vote, impacting the elderly and people with disabilities.
"I think it's a real insult to community leaders, not just activists and organizers, but also local elected officials who depend upon the principle of home rule to judge for ourselves what, what's best for us," Winn said.
Advocates are now gathering themselves to determine what their next steps are following this move, which they believe was purely political as the Democratic governor is up for re-election in November.
"It's really poor political analysis to think that signing this bill somehow has an advantage," Winn said.
