LITTLE ROCK, Ark. — While lawmakers in Washington debate immigration policy and whether to build a border wall, a different debate on immigration is brewing in Little Rock. 

The Little Rock Board of Directors will soon define its stance on undocumented immigrants.

“This resolution necessarily is a recognition publicly of what we’re already doing privately,” Little Rock City Director Lance Hines said. 

“This is a racist policy, it’s very discriminatory, and it actually solves a problem that we don’t have,” Rosa Velazquez, the lead advocate for Arkansas United said. 

Resolution 7 on the city board agenda states: To declare compliance by the city with requests from the federal government to stem illegal immigration. 

It means Little Rock is not a sanctuary city, and it will handle undocumented immigrants the way the federal government says.

“It really only applies to where we have somebody in our custody that’s committed a criminal act,” Hines said. 

But Velazquez, who’s undocumented says the definition of a criminal is blurred. 

“It’s inhumane to think of people as criminals just for not having a status,” she said.  

In the last three years, Little Rock has received about a million dollars in federal Department of Justice grants. 

Hines says the city could lose that money and future funds without this resolution.

“There’s a whole plethora of needs for our public safety police department that those federal Department of Justice grants help us get,” he said. 

But Velazquez and Arkansas United will continue working for a no vote. 

“We don’t need policies like this. We need to be a community that thrives and we’re going to do it together,” she said. 

Mayor Frank Scott Jr. has said he thinks this may be a solution looking for a problem.

The resolution vote has been pushed back to March 5th. 

In the interim, Arkansas United says they will be talking with the city board of directors and the mayor to find another solution.