Republican Deportation Bill Criminalizes Immigrants, Encourages Discrimination & Makes Communities Less Safe
Statement
A Republican bill passed by the House Judiciary Committee today will turn millions of undocumented immigrants into criminals overnight, make communities less safe, and lead to increased racial profiling and discrimination, said U.S. Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-Calif.), the Judiciary Committee Immigration and Border Security Subcomittee's Senior Democrat.
The legislation, H.R. 1148, also known as "the SAFE Act," ignores the need to find solutions to our broken immigration system -- which must include a path to earned permanent legal status for undocumented immigrants -- and instead takes a deportation-only approach to immigration reform.
H.R. 1148 could have far reaching negative consequences, including widespread discrimination based on race, ethnicity and national origin, decreased public safety in communities all around the country, and unconstitutional denials of due process to persons subjected to enforcement activities, including prolonged detention.
Rep. Lofgren's full statement as prepared is below:
"My colleagues who were on this Committee in the 113th Congress know that we marked up this bill under a different name: "the SAFE Act." At the time, the decision to take up this deportation-only bill may have seemed a bit surprising.
"Following the 2012 election, the Republican National Committee issued a report concluding that the Republican party "must embrace and champion comprehensive immigration reform. If we do not, our Party's appeal will continue to shrink to its core constituencies only." A bipartisan group in the House was making solid progress on a sensible bill to reform our immigration system and the Senate had less than one week earlier begun debate on S. 744, a bipartisan immigration reform bill that ultimately passed by a supermajority (68-32).
"Rather than embracing comprehensive immigration reform, the so-called "SAFE Act" took us in the exact opposite direction.
"Knowing what we know now, it is hardly surprising that we are considering the bill once more. Last Congress, Republican leadership in the House squandered the opportunity to heed the advice of the RNC and the will of the American people, who overwhelmingly support immigration reform. For the first two months of this Congress they focused all of their attention on eliminating DACA and subjecting DREAMers once more to the threat of deportation, blocking the administration's efforts to offer temporary protection to deserving parents of American children, and preventing the administration from prioritizing the removal of serious criminals over farmworkers and nannies.
"I say they have focused all of their attention on these efforts because it is this fixation that made it impossible to properly fund the Department of Homeland Security until just hours before funding ran out. And even then, the Department was funded over the objection of more than two-thirds of the House Republican conference.
"Let me provide a little more context for today's markup. Almost 10 years ago, this Committee considered a bill that was similar to H.R. 1148 in many key respects.
Like this bill, H.R. 4437 turned millions of undocumented immigrants into criminals overnight.
Like this bill, H.R. 4437 turned State and local law enforcement officers around the country into immigration agents.
Like this bill, H.R. 4437 expanded mandatory and prolonged detention, denied due process and judicial review, and ignored the problems of racial profiling and unlawful discrimination that were sure to result from the language in the bill.
"Today, while the entire country is looking for solutions to our broken immigration system--which must include a path to earned permanent legal status for undocumented immigrants--this bill would instead turn those people into criminals. The bill makes "unlawful presence" a criminal offense and makes it a crime to overstay a visa by even a single day or to violate the terms of entry in even the most innocuous ways.
"The country has considered and rejected mass deportation or self-deportation. Members of this Committee have admitted that is not realistic. So how can it make any more sense to imprison all of those people?
"The bill also allows every State and locality to pass its own civil and criminal immigration laws. It is bad enough that the bill makes every undocumented immigrant guilty of two new Federal crimes. By allowing States and localities to pass similar criminal laws, the bill will make the situation infinitely worse. Not even H.R. 4437 did that.
"Whereas the Supreme Court in the Arizona case explained the importance of Federal preemption by saying that "it is fundamental that foreign countries concerned about the status, safety, and security of their nationals in the United States must be able to confer and communicate on this subject with one national sovereign, not 50 separate states," by allowing every State, county and locality to implement, enact, and enforce their own immigration laws the SAFE Act would multiply that problem 100-fold.
"The bill also gives every State and local law enforcement officer in the country authority to investigate, identify, arrest, and detain people pursuant to Federal, State, or local immigration laws. We all trust State and local police to enforce various laws, but that doesn't mean that when a highway patrol officer pulls someone over for speeding we want that officer to also request 3 years' worth of Form 1040s. Confirming a motorist's compliance with Federal tax laws is just beyond the scope of that encounter. It is also worth noting that Federal courts have recognized for decades that the immigration laws as "second only to the Internal Revenue Code in complexity. A lawyer is often the only person who could thread the labyrinth." Castro-O'Ryan v. INS, 821 F.2d 1415, 1419 (9th Cir. 1987).
"Worse still, the bill authorizes such officers to issue their own detainers that would allow them to, according to the bill, hold in prison or jail any non-citizen who has "served a prison sentence under State or local law . . . until the Secretary can take the alien into custody." There is no limit on the duration of such detention. No requirement for probable cause or a hearing before a judge. In fact, the provision does not even suggest that the State or local law enforcement officer has to even believe that the non-citizen is removable from the country before issuing that detainer and depriving that person of liberty.
"How many U.S. citizens and lawful permanent residents are going to be subjected to racial profiling and unlawful detention as a result of these provisions? So much for believing in small government and individual liberty. Several founding members of the House Freedom Caucus are on this Committee and I hope we can hear their views on these provisions.
"I believe we agree that our immigration system is broken and that we need a solution that respects the rule of law and our common humanity.
"I believe we want to empower State and local law enforcement personnel to do their jobs, which means first and foremost keeping their communities safe.
"I believe we want to respect the Constitution and ensure that people are not deprived of liberty without due process or as a result of racial profiling or other forms of discrimination.
"Unfortunately H.R. 1148 simply fails to meet all of these shared beliefs. Instead, the bill takes us back in time to an approach that has long been rejected by the American people."
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