A southern Californian city became the first in the state to appoint two new commissioners without legal status to its advisory boards on Monday night.
Huntington Park City Councilman Jhonny Pineda appointed 29-year-old Francisco Medina to lead the parks and recreation commission and 21-year-old Julian Zatarian to lead the health and education commission. Both men were born in Mexico. The two men are not covered under President Barack Obama’s 2012 executive action known as the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, which would have allowed some immigrants to receive deportation relief and work authorization in two-year increments.
According to the Huntington Park city government website, Medina’s role will be to advise the city council on the acquisition, use, maintenance, and operation of parks, playgrounds, and other public recreational facilities, and to maintain a planned program of public recreation for the city’s residents. Zatarian’s role will be to create awareness, determine needs, and attempt to implement plans for improved health and education matters in the city.
The city attorney cleared the appointments, confirming that commissioners don’t need to be registered voters or documented citizens. The Huntington Park city government website also states that no more than two of the five city commissioners can live outside city limits. Both Medina and Zatarian are Huntington Park residents, who will serve up to four years on their respective advisory boards.
Because of their legal status, Medina and Zatarian will not be paid the $75 monthly stipend when they hold meetings and would not have a direct hand in constructing policy, but would help advise the council on legislation, a local CBS affiliate reported.
“Undocumented immigrants in this country and this city doesn’t [sic] have the voice that they deserve,” Zatarian told a local ABC affiliate after his appointment. “I live in this city. I behave like a citizen. … When it comes to helping the city, I don’t think it matters what’s your race or your status in the country.”
“I’m here just to do my best,” Medina added. “I’m willing to work hard.”
Not everyone was thrilled about the appointments. One woman accused city officials of “breaking the law” at the packed meeting on Monday night. Others argued that the appointments take jobs away from Americans, who are likely more qualified.
But as the Los Angeles Times pointed out, a lack of civic engagement may have helped to foster corruption in city councils across Los Angeles County. Last year, the city manager of Bell, CA — just a few miles away from Huntington Park — was sentence to 12 years in prison and ordered to make restitution of $8.8 million for a corruption scheme that almost bankrupted the city.
Huntington Park Mayor Karina Macias defended the appointments, stating, “They have every right to be at that table, because they are part of our community, and I’ll leave it at that.”
“There’s always going to be people who disagree,” Pineda said. “We need community involvement. We need to make sure we reach out to the entire community so that they can help us move this city forward.”
Both Medina and Zatarian reflect the growing Latino population in Huntington Park. The city is at least 50 percent foreign-born, while more than 97 percent of its residents are Latino, a local Public Radio International affiliate, KPCC found. Medina and Zatarian also reflect the makeup of the undocumented immigrant population in Los Angeles County. At least one in ten residents in Los Angeles do not have legal status. While undocumented immigrants generate at least $31 billion in personal income to the state, the population isn’t given a chance to be heard.
The appointment of undocumented immigrants to advisory boards in California is an somewhat unsurprising advancement given the recent spate of progressive state policies to make life easier for the population. At the beginning of this year, California began issuing driver’s licenses to undocumented immigrants, a move that some advocates believe could improve public safety. The state also extended health care access to indigent, undocumented children.
Other cities have encouraged legal non-citizens — though not undocumented immigrants — to get involved in civic engagement in the past. New York City council members re-introduced legislation earlier this year to allow legal immigrants who have lived in the city for six months or more to vote in municipal elections if they’ve met the state’s voting requirements. Six towns in Maryland allow non-citizens, including undocumented immigrants, to vote in municipal elections. Chicago allows non-citizens to vote in school elections as well. And Takoma Park, Maryland has allowed legal immigrants to vote in city elections for at least 20 years.
Expanding voting rights to legal immigrants could positively affect how local dollars are being spent. It would also be fair, considering how much immigrants contribute in state and local taxes. In the case of New York City, immigrants there “contribute around $18.2 billion in New York state taxes annually, and that’s a sizable proportion of people with no representation in the city they invest in,” Joanna Cuevas Ingram, an attorney for LatinoJustice and a member of the Coalition to Expand Voting Rights, told ThinkProgress earlier this year.