Sign-on Letter to the House on the Secret Evidence Repeal Act
SECRET EVIDENCE SIGN-ON LETTER
May 26, 2000
Dear Representative:
No person should be deprived of liberty based on evidence kept secret from the person. We are writing to ask that you support this principle of due process in immigration cases by co-sponsoring the Secret Evidence Repeal Act, H.R. 2121, introduced by Representatives Bonior (D-MI), Campbell (R-CA), Conyers (D-MI) and Barr (R-GA).
The 1996 Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act is being used by the Immigration and Naturalization Service to deny bond, asylum and other immigration relief to non-citizens based on evidence kept secret from them. The 1996 Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act established a special "Star Chamber" court that can use secret evidence to deport even lawful permanent residents as "terrorists."
Under these 1996 laws, any non-citizen alleged to be deportable may be detained without bond for years without even knowing why he is being detained. Likewise, any non-citizen who seeks asylum may be returned to a country where she faces persecution or torture, all because the evidence suggesting that the non-citizen does not qualify for asylum is kept secret from her, and therefore cannot be rebutted or effectively challenged. This can happen to any non-citizen, including those not accused of being "terrorists." Finally, a non-citizen, including a lawful permanent resident, can be accused of being a "terrorist" under the Immigration and Nationality Act, detained, required to appear in front a special court, and be ordered deported without ever being informed of the basis for the charges against him.
This is unfair. Nobody can defend against secret allegations whispered by the unknown accuser. As Supreme Court Justice Frankfurter said in Joint Anti-Fascist Refugee Committee v. McGrath, "Secrecy is not congenial to truth seeking. ... No better instrument has been devised for arriving at the truth than to give a person in jeopardy of serious loss notice of the case against him and the opportunity to meet it."
More recently, immigration judges have determined that the secret evidence being used is inherently unreliable. In In re Ahmed, the immigration judge said that most of the secret evidence being used to deny asylum and bond amounted to double or even triple hearsay, and may have originated with the foreign government accused of persecuting the non-citizen seeking asylum. On October 20, 1999, a federal district court in New Jersey joined the 9th Circuit and the Federal District Court in Washington, D.C. in ruling that the use of secret evidence violates a non-citizen's due process rights: "[T]he government's reliance on secret evidence violates the due process protections that the Constitution directs must be extended to all person within the United States, citizens and resident aliens alike. The INS procedures patently failed the ... test of constitutional sufficiency." Kiareldeen v. Reno.
We urge you to co-sponsor and support the Secret Evidence Repeal Act. It would prohibit the government from using secret evidence to deport non-citizens or to deny critically important immigration benefits to them. It would not require the release of dangerous people. Rather, it would require the government to make in immigration cases the same choice it must make in criminal cases: either disclose the evidence it wishes to use against the person or leave that evidence out of the proceedings altogether.
Sincerely,
American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee
American-Arab Council (New York)
American Arab Heritage Council (Flint, MI)
American Civil Liberties Union
American Friends Service Committee
American Immigration Law Foundation
American Immigration Lawyers Association
Americans for Democratic Action
Americans for Tax Reform
Amnesty International USA
Arab American Institute
Arab American League of Voters of New Jersey
Asian American Legal Defense and Education Fund
Asian Law Alliance
Asian Law Caucus
Asian Pacific American Labor Alliance
Asian Pacific American Legal Center of Southern California
AYUDA (Washington, D.C.)
Caribbean Women's Health Association (New York)
Catholic Charities Family Services (Honolulu)
Catholic Charities of Dallas, Inc, Immigration Counseling Services
Center for Battered Women's Legal Services
Center for Constitutional Rights
Central American Resource Center
Centro Cultural (Cornelius, OR)
Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles (CHIRLA)
Columbian American Service Association (Miami)
El Rescate (Los Angeles)
Estamos Unidos - Hispanic Ministries (Roanoke, VA)
Heartland Alliance for Human Needs and Human Rights
Hermandad Mexicana National
Immigrant and Refugee Rights Project of the Washington Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights & Urban Affairs (Washington, D.C.)
Immigrant Legal Resource Center (San Francisco)
Immigration and Refugee Services of America/U.S. Committee for Refugees
International Human Rights Law Clinic (Berkeley, CA)
International Institute of New Jersey
International Institute of Rhode Island
International Institute of San Francisco
Jewish Community Council, Metropolitan Detroit
Korean Resource Center
Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights of the San Francisco Bay Area
Lawyers Committee for Human Rights
Massachusetts Immigrant and Refugee Advocacy Coalition (MIRA)
Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund
Na Loio - Immigrant Rights and Public Interest Legal Center (Honolulu)
National Asian Pacific American Legal Consortium
National Committee Against Repressive Legislation
National Council of La Raza
National Immigration Project of the National Lawyers Guild
National Korean American Service and Education Consortium
National Lawyers Guild
National Network for Immigrant and Refugee Rights
Northwest Immigrant Rights Project
Public Counsel
Riverside Language Program, Inc.
San Francisco District Attorney's Office
Sponsors Organized to Assist Refugees (Portland)
United Methodist General Board of Church and Society
VIVE Inc.
Westchester Hispanic Coalition (White Plains, NY)
World Organization Against Torture USA
World Relief
World Relief, Chicago