Blog of Rights
Charanya
Krishnaswami
06/27/2012
287(g)

Reading the Fine Print: DHS Has Not Ended 287(g) in Arizona

By Joanne Lin, Washington Legislative Office & Chris Rickerd, ACLU Washington Legislative Office & Charanya Krishnaswami, ACLU Washington Legislative Office at 1:20pm

On Monday, the Supreme Court in Arizona v. United States struck down three provisions of Arizona’s S.B. 1070 racial profiling law, but reinstated, for now, the most controversial provision, which requires Arizona police officers to demand the immigration papers of anyone they stop, arrest, or detain. S.B. 1070 makes racial profiling Arizona state policy. When a police officer asks for papers, it’s based on bias because there is no way to tell by looking at or listening to someone whether the person is lawfully in the United States.

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06/25/2012
DREAM Act

Obama Has Done His Part; Senator Rubio, It’s Your Turn

By Charanya Krishnaswami, ACLU Washington Legislative Office at 9:47am

In the midst of an election year in which Democrats and Republicans seem prepared to fight about whether the sky is blue, here’s one thing that both parties actually agree on: the lifeline President Obama extended last week to America’s undocumented youth is not a permanent solution.

Last week the president used well-established executive authority to institute“deferred action” for this class of DREAMers—promising students who are American in all but status—which will halt their pending or future deportations for a period of two years. Although Republicans have criticized the measure as an expedient, short-term solution, the president has made clear this policy is not a permanent fix: “This is a temporary stop-gap measure that lets us focus our resources wisely while giving a degree of relief and hope to talented, driven, patriotic young people.” Indeed, the president ended his announcement by calling on the only branch vested with the ability to grant DREAMers longstanding relief: Congress.

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05/31/2012
DREAM Act

House Republican Discloses a (Watered-Down) DREAM—What About the President?

By Charanya Krishnaswami, ACLU Washington Legislative Office & Joanne Lin, Washington Legislative Office at 6:15pm
What happens to a DREAM deferred? In 2010 Senate Republicans defeated the bipartisan legislation, which offered a path to citizenship for DREAMers—promising undocumented youth headed to college or the military, most of whom were brought to the United States at very young ages through no fault of their own. But now, the same party that stamped out DREAM is attempting to bring it back—somewhat.
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05/18/2012
Immigration and Customs Enforcement

House GOP’s Rewrite of VAWA Does Violence to Immigrants

By Charanya Krishnaswami, ACLU Washington Legislative Office at 3:32pm

“[A]buse in the U.S. immigration system must be stopped,” Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX) recently remarked. Ironic, considering that Smith is a co-sponsor of the recently passed H.R. 4970, a so-called “renewal” of the historic Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) that actually eviscerates several long-standing protections for survivors of domestic violence—particularly immigrant survivors. 

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05/17/2012
Immigration and Customs Enforcement

Inappropriate Appropriations: The House Votes to Waste Taxpayer Money on Unnecessary Border and Immigration Enforcement

By Charanya Krishnaswami, ACLU Washington Legislative Office & Joanne Lin, Washington Legislative Office & Chris Rickerd, ACLU Washington Legislative Office at 4:22pm

“Trimming excess.”

That’s how Rep. Hal Rogers (R-Ky.), Chairman of the House Committee on Appropriations, described the committee’s recently released 2013 budget for the Department of Homeland Security. Rogers says the bill, which the committee marked up and passed out of committee yesterday,  is “focused on fiscal discipline” and only supports the “most hard-hitting” of DHS’s vast umbrella of programs.

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