Senate Appropriators to Decide on Enforcement-Only Bills Today!
Marshall Fitz
Director of Advocacy, AILA
September 25, 2006
Dear Immigration Advocates-
Your help is STILL needed TODAY! Senate Appropriators will meet late THIS AFTERNOON to decide if enforcement-only bills will be included in the Department of Homeland Security's appropriations package. Urge your Senators to oppose efforts to attach anti-immigration measures to this must-pass bill. Call or email your Senators TODAY - encourage them to weigh-in with Senate Appropriators about this urgent matter.
You can find general information about the three bills below and a section-by-section analysis of each one on InfoNet.
Email your Senators through Contact Congress on AILA's website. We've already created a sample letter for you to send. All you need to do is enter your zip code, hit send, and your voice will be heard in Congress.
Call your Senators, you can find their telephone numbers in our Congressional Directory and you can use these talking points to help you when you call:
· Congress should stop playing politics with immigration and pass comprehensive immigration reform. These enforcement-only bills will do nothing to enhance border security and will not move us one inch closer to fixing our broken immigration system.
· Attaching these bills to DHS appropriations circumvents the legislative process on an issue of critical national importance; it undermines the intense and unflagging efforts of the Senate to solve this crisis; and it rewards the House for spending the summer attacking the Senate while abdicating its responsibility to the American people.
· Senators should forcefully oppose this effort by the House to nullify the Senate's bi-partison solution. If the Senate acquiesces on these provisions, the House will only be emboldened and will never return to debate comprehensive reform. This will not be "enforcement-first", it will be "enforcement-only."
· For laws to work, they must be realistic and fair. Our current immigration laws are neither: proposals like these that ignore the reality that immigrants come here to work and to be with their families are destined to fail.
· Giving the government unchecked powers to punish immigrants, and making local police chase after immigrants, will only drive undocumented immigrants further underground. It will not fix the problem; it will make matters worse.
We called you to action last week to alert you to an underhanded political strategy from immigration restrictionists to attach three enforcement-only bills to the DHS appropriations bill, a bill that must pass this year. You and your colleagues sent close to 2,000 letters to Congress, but we'll need more letters and phone calls in order to ensure that Senate Appropriators exclude these measures from the bill.
Leaders of the U.S. House of Representatives are working behind closed doors and using procedural mechanisms to attach enforcement-only provisions contained in three bills (H.R. 6094, H.R. 6095, and H.R. 4830) to the Department of Homeland Security appropriations bill, a piece of legislation that must pass this year. Although House leaders label these bills "border security" legislation, they are in fact harsh enforcement measures lifted from Rep. Sensenbrenner's H.R. 4437 that endanger due process rights and do little to make our borders more secure. You can find general information about the three bills below and a section-by-section analysis of each one on InfoNet.
If these provisions are attached to the must-pass DHS bill, it will be nearly impossible to defeat them. Our best defense against this backdoor strategy is to put pressure on each U.S. Senator and encourage them to oppose any attempt to attach, or further these three enforcement-only bills. We're working hard in Washington to derail these political machinations, but we can't do it alone. We need your help. Please email or call both of your Senators today.
Over the summer House leadership used dozens of faux hearings to stage public displays of aversion to immigration reform. While they kept the media busy and their restrictionist base roiled, they failed to change the minds of the majority of Americans who support a comprehensive solution to our broken immigration system. Nor did they succeed in backing down the U.S. Senators who supported S. 2611, a strong step towards comprehensive immigration reform. Now that House leaders know that the full Senate won't pass their enforcement-only agenda, they have resorted to closed-door politicking. We must fight to prevent the breach of justice that would result from attaching these enforcement-only bills to must-pass legislation.
Please call and email your Senators today. Now is the time for action.
Sincerely,
Marshall
The enforcement-only provisions are:
· Sections 101 and 102 of the Dangerous Alien Detention Act contained in H.R. 6094, which seek to legitimize the practice of indefinite detention of aliens awaiting removal, despite Supreme Court decisions requiring elimination of this practice;
· Section 201 of the Criminal Alien Removal Act contained in H.R. 6094, which would expand the use of expedited removal proceedings to individuals already in the United States - even individuals who have resided here for years - in ways that would significantly increase the risk of deporting innocent people;
· Sections 301-303 of the Alien Gang Removal Act contained in H.R. 6094, which would grant unfettered discretion to the executive branch to designate "criminal street gangs" and then strip members of such gangs of virtually all rights;
· Section 101 of H.R. 6095, which gives state and local police authority to investigate, arrest, and detain noncitizens for civil violations of immigration status;
· Sections 301 and 302 of the Ending Catch and Release Act contained in H.R. 6095, which would limit the power of federal courts to grant injunctive relief in civil immigration proceedings, despite acknowledgement by DOJ that such relief does not interfere with efforts to end the practice of catch-and-release.
Frist Wants Immigration Vote This Week
By HOPE YEN
Associated Press Writer
September 24, 2006
WASHINGTON — Maneuvering toward a pre-election showdown on immigration, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist on Sunday said he would seek passage of legislation to secure the borders and predicted Democrats would resist.
"Right now I got a feeling the Democrats may obstruct it," said Frist, R-Tenn.
The bill is all that is left of a comprehensive immigration proposal generally backed by President Bush that included provisions for a guest worker program and ways for an estimated 12 million illegal immigrants to work toward legal status and eventual citizenship.
Frist led a bipartisan effort to pass that measure this year, but House Republicans opposed it as too lenient on immigrants in the country illegally.
Jim Manley, a spokesman for Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid of Nevada, accused Frist of playing politics by seeking to blame Democrats. Frist's move is an attempt to cover up his failure to push through more comprehensive changes, Manley said.
"The Senate spent almost a month debating and then passing tough and smart immigration reform that included border security, but Republican obstructionism has prevented us from completing that bill," Manley said in a statement.
In December, the House passed legislation that concentrated on border security and enforcement of laws banning employment of undocumented workers; the Senate in May then passed its broader bill. Since then, there's been no progress in efforts to reconcile the two bills.
With no prospects this year for passing broader immigration changes, House GOP leaders said taking action to seal the border was a matter of urgency. Some GOP lawmakers including Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., however, have said they're not sure immigration could be addressed "on a piecemeal basis."
Frist said he is willing to push ahead with a narrower version favored by House Republicans. Even so, action may not be possible before the November elections, he said, blaming Democrats.
"If you're going to address immigration reform, you have to first and foremost secure our borders," he said on ABC's "This Week." "What I've done, and hopefully what we'll be voting on the floor of the Senate this week, is take the common parts of the House bill and the common parts of the Senate bill."
=====================================================
|
|
|