The U.S. Senate begins markup on immigration reform bill S.744 on Thursday, after senators filed more than 300 amendments earlier this week. While it remains to be seen which of these amendments will actually be offered for a vote, a picture has emerged of which senators want to create a commonsense immigration law that defends due process and human rights—and who wants to use it as a weapon against immigrants and American justice.
The Positive
Heartland Alliance’s National Immigrant Justice Center (NIJC) applauds those senators who stepped forward with amendments that would advance civil rights protections and address serious problems in our country’s current immigration system. Among the highlights were amendments that:
- Permit binational LGBT couples to benefit from family unification provisions under U.S. immigration law.
- Limit the abusive use of solitary confinement for immigrant detainees.
- Improve legal remedies for immigrants who have lived in the U.S. for a long time and have close family members here.
- Protect children affected by immigration enforcement actions.
The Negative
A number of senators filed mean-spirited and punitive amendments that would deprive immigrants of basic due process rights and keep families torn apart permanently. If these amendments were to pass, we would be living with a system that:
- Keeps undocumented individuals and families as a permanent underclass that has no path to citizenship
- Continues to keep families apart if a loved one has already been deported or has a final removal order, even if they are eligible for a path to citizenship under S.744.
- Opens the floodgates for anti-immigrant state legislators who want the whole country to treat immigrants like Arizona’s Maricopa County Sherriff Joe Arpaio.
- Exacts the harshest punishments ever on people simply for living in the United States without status—including prison sentences for overstaying visas and even harsher criminal penalties for entering the United States unlawfully.
- Keeps the inhumane and ineffective one-year filing deadline for asylum applications, an arbitrary rule that has denied protection to thousands of legitimate people fleeing persecution and burdened the immigration courts with cases that could have been decided by an Asylum Officer.
- Terminates grants of asylum if asylees return to their countries of origin, even though people are desperate to briefly visit with loved ones, attend funerals, or help rebuild war-torn communities.
- Prevents judges from determining whether a person should be detained.
- Denies funding for legal counsel for unaccompanied children and the seriously mentally ill.
The full list of amendments is available at http://www.judiciary.senate.gov/legislation/immigration/amendments.cfm
For updates on immigration reform and NIJC’s response, visit immigrantjustice.org/immigrationreform.