Democrats in the Ohio House say they'll introduce eight bills to respond to the Trump administration's aggressive immigration enforcement efforts.
Federal immigration agents in Minnesota have shot and killed two people and injured a number of others. State Representative Karen Brownlee says she doesn't want a similar situation in Ohio.
"These reckless policies create a power struggle between law enforcement and their communities that no one wants," Brownlee said during a news conference on the steps of the Hamilton County Courthouse Tuesday. "In Ohio, we stand with both citizens and law enforcement in calling for common sense solutions."
Brownlee, who represents a district including Symmes Township, is introducing a bill with State Rep. Cecil Thomas that will prohibit law enforcement officers from obscuring their faces with masks to hide who they are. Called the "Community and Police Protection Act," the bill also requires law enforcement personnel to wear badges or patches with identifying information.
Thomas, who represents a district encompassing part of Cincinnati, said the measure is part of a larger package of legislation.
"The bills that we are introducing are designed to return the rule of law to the state of Ohio," he said. "We do not want to see what happened in Minneapolis, Minnesota."
State Rep. Ashley Bryant Bailey, whose district includes other parts of the city from Hyde Park to Bond Hill, is introducing another bill that would set mandatory standards for detention centers in the state. Those would apply to all juvenile and adult courts, she said, not just facilities holding ICE detainees.
"There have been reports from Butler County Jail of folks standing in freezing temperatures, not being allowed to contact their family and friends not being allowed to observe their religious rites," Bailey said. "That's not the Ohio we know."
The Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Corrections has said Butler County Jail meets its recommendations. But people held there on ICE detainers and their advocates dispute this. WVXU spoke to one detainee at the jail who claimed he was not receiving adequate medical attention. He said his condition was bad enough that he was requesting to be deported immediately to his native Senegal rather than stay in the jail.
Other bills in the package from Democratic lawmakers include measures that would bar immigration enforcement actions in hospitals, places of worship, schools and other sensitive areas; limit the collection and sale of Ohioans' personal information by government entities; and guarantee independent investigations of allegations of federal agent misconduct.
GOP lawmakers have a supermajority in the Ohio General Assembly and seem unlikely to pass the raft of legislation.
Meanwhile, Republicans in the Ohio Statehouse have introduced three of their own bills related to the Trump administration's immigration enforcement policies.
Those bills — HB26, HB281 and HB200 — would require local law enforcement to notify ICE if they believe they have a person without immigration status in their custody, would make it easier for federal agents to undertake immigration enforcement actions in hospitals and would make it a state crime to be in Ohio without immigration status. Those bills are in committee now.
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