PAGE 3
THE HARVARD CRIMSON | FEBRUARY 26, 2020
City Approves Arrests Ordinance By MARIA G. GONZALEZ CRIMSON STAFF WRITER
he Cambridge City Council T recently approved a measure that advises police not to arrest unlicensed drivers in Cambridge in an effort to protect undocumented immigrants. The new policy is part of the city’s “Welcoming Community” ordinance, a measure that councilors say aims to solidify Cambridge’s status as a sanctuary city. The purpose of the ordinance is to “increase public confidence in Cambridge’s government by providing guidelines” for the city’s involvement in federal immigration enforcement — and to “declare that all are welcome here,” according to a policy order. The ordinance, which passed with seven affirmatives and one “present” vote during the Council’s Feb. 10 meeting, encourages Cambridge Police to issue court summonses to unlicensed drivers if those drivers have not committed other arrestable violations Un-
documented and unlicensed drivers face often risks of detention and deportation when they are arrested. According to the ordinance, this occurs because police enter fingerprints of suspects into databases used by United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement. The new law, however, aims to protect undocumented immigrants by discouraging police officers from taking unlicensed drivers into custody. Although police have informally practiced this procedure in Cambridge in the past, the council — whose members have previously criticized federal immigration policies — wanted to enact an official ordinance to protect undocumented immigrants from federal immigration enforcement. Under the new law, officers also will give unlicensed drivers the opportunity to arrange for a licensed driver to drive the vehicle away before authorities impound it. Councilor Quinton Y. Zondervan wrote in an email
SCALISE FROM PAGE 1
AD Unconcerned by Retention Rates “ There’s nothing that we’re doing to increase that number in any way shape or form,” he said. Still, Scalise said he monitors and reviews teams that experience inordinate rates of attrition. Men’s soccer and women’s lightweight crew both experienced attrition rates of at least fifty percent among members of the Class of 2020, according to
The Crimson’s analysis. “There’s certain instances where when there’s a lot of turnover on a specific team that causes us to say I wonder what’s going on here,” he said. “And you try to investigate and see what’s the root cause of this particular team having that experience.” ema.schumer@thecrimson.com
KHURANA FROM PAGE 1
Khurana Talks Public Service and Civic Duty the Institute of Politics, as well as newer College programs like Service Starts with Summer, which the College launched last year. Summer Starts with Service offers incoming freshmen the opportunity to serve in their hometowns alongside Harvard faculty and student leaders the summer before matriculation. A select number who commit to more than 100 hours of service receive a $1500 stipend. Khurana added that the College must provide opportunities for students to serve inside and outside of the classroom. “Finding opportunities to work on complex problems — which are transdisciplinary, cut across array of institutions or disciplines — and understanding systems is important,” he said.
He gave the example of the Mindich Program in Engaged Scholarship, which offers courses that include a public service component and cultivates an “appreciation for non-academic perspectives, knowledge, and expertise,” according to its website. Regardless of their undergraduate pursuits, Khurana said the College should provide many options for students to explore public service after they leave Harvard. “I think what’s also important is that we make sure that we’re giving students as many alternatives and choices to consider what their first job would be after college,” he said. juliet.isselbacher@thecrimson.com amanda.su@thecrimson.com
to The Crimson Tuesday that the official ordinance was necessary to “communicate to our immigrant community that our police are not deputized agents of ICE” and “make it clear that we want this policy to continue.”
As long as the federal government insists on waging war on immigrants, we at the local level and state level have to step up our efforts to keep our communities safe. Quinton Y. Zondervan Cambridge City Councilor
Organizations supporting the ordinance include the Brazilian Worker Center, the Welcome Project, and the Massachusetts branch of the American Civil Liberties Union. On their website, the Massachu-
setts ACLU encourages cities and towns to pass policies that support immigrants and prevent deportation. “Cities and towns cannot legally be forced to use their own resources to assist in the enforcement of immigration laws,” the website reads. “They can, however, create policies that send a clear message: immigrants are welcome here and they should not fear their local government.” Zondervan wrote that he hopes to see more cities adopt similar policies on unlicensed drivers in the future. “As long as the federal government insists on waging war on immigrants, we at the local and state level have to step up our efforts to keep our communities safe,” he wrote. “That means making it clear to our immigrant community members that they can safely reach out to the police when they need help or see someone in trouble, without fearing that they will be deported,” he said. maria.gonzalez@thecrimson.com
VOTING FROM PAGE 1
Early Voters Head to Polls in Mass. at Cambridge’s Main Library, said she supports Warren because she is “wise and principled.” She added that she decided to ignore the issue of electability — which Democratic voters tell pollsters is the most important issue to them nationally — and vote based on her perception of who will make the best chief executive. “It’s a circular issue where everyone talks about electability and it means that they don’t consider the best candidate, necessarily,” Simonson said. “I’ve decided to pick my candidate and go for it and tell everyone that they’re great in the hopes that other people will also follow that line of thinking and vote for the best person for the position, rather than worrying about all the noise,” she added. Democratic presidential candidates are ramping up their campaigns in Massachusetts
ahead of next Tuesday’s primary, when Bay State voters will go to the polls along with 13 other states. U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) is scheduled to hold two events in Massachusetts over the weekend, including one on Boston Common at noon on Saturday. Cambridge resident Ryan DeGroot said he voted for Sanders and added that he is wary of billionaire and former New York City Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s titanic campaign spending. DeGroot also said that he appreciated the speed of the voting process at the Main Library Tuesday. “You just walk in, take the ballot, go fill it in, and then fist bump the person at the ballot box and then walk out,” he said. “So it’s pretty nice.” jasper.goodman@thecrimson.com
Academics Talk Housing Policy at IOP By HELEN HE and ALEX M. KOLLER CONTRIBUTING WRITERS
our experts gathered to discuss F the origins and persisting challenges of racism in urban housing policy at a Harvard Institute of Politics forum Tuesday evening. Khalil Gibran Muhammad, a professor of History, Race, and Public Policy at the Harvard Kennedy School, moderated the event. Panelists included Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, an assistant professor of African American studies at Princeton University; David A. Williams ’07, the policy director at Opportunity Insights, a Harvard-based research and policy lab; and Lizabeth A. Cohen, a Harvard History professor. The speakers explained the influence of the private sector — specifically the real estate industry — in shaping multiple housing policies that, according to Taylor, enabled “the racial marginalization of non-white people.” They argued that the government must intervene to address national housing issues, rather than defer to the interests of the private sector. “In order to actually match the scale of the crisis, we have to embrace the language of entitlement and the idea that the state has a role to play, and we cannot defer that responsibility to a real estate industry, to a banking industry, whose entire history is wound up in white supremacy and racial discrimination that have created these problems that we are living with now,” Taylor said. Taylor also placed those public-private partnerships with-
A panel of experts discusses the history and continuing challenges of racism in urban housing at an event at the Institute of Politics Tuesday evening. MYEONGSEO KIM—CRIMSON PHOTOGRAPHER
in larger historical contexts, describing their origins. “As early as 1924, the National Association of Real Estate boards had already made it a rule that any realtor who introduced someone of a different race into a racially homogenous neighborhood would lose their license,” Taylor said. “These are the people who were recruited into [President Franklin Delano] Roosevelt’s federal housing administration to help shape the first federal laws regarding housing policy and home ownership in par-
The inside scoop, 24/7.
The Crimson thecrimson.com
ticular. So they bring with them their ‘expertise’ in segregregation,” she added. Later in the discussion, Muhammad asked Williams if determining the causes of housing segregation is an “open-ended question” for his team at Opportunity Insights. “Interrogating those questions, I think is really important to understand, well-intentioned or not, what are the implications of the policy choices we’re actually making,” Williams said. Williams said that he feels optimistic about policy mea-
sures intended to helphelp families get increased access to housing. “This isn’t going to solve the entire issue. Most families who qualify for Section 8 still don’t receive those vouchers because there isn’t enough funding for it,” Williams said. “But I think there’s something about actually providing services that can help navigate some of the systemic barriers that we’ve seen because of our history, and I think that does give some kind of optimism moving forward,” he added.
