Although the 9-11 Commission did not say the government needed to target immigrants, this bill would expand the government's ability to deport more people without a hearing. It would also allow the government to seize people who may have entered the United States outside the system in the last five years and throw them into a so-called expedited deportation process without the right to a lawyer or to at least make their case in court.
This bill includes provisions proposed by House Republicans that are nothing more than a wish-list for the extreme anti-immigrant fringe, who would divert resources from fighting terrorism to wage war against people whose only crime is seeking a better life in America. The new tools proposed in the House bill would create a dictatorial nightmare where people caught in immigration sweeps could be summarily detained or deported with no access to lawyers or courts.
Congress should not allow intelligence reform to be hijacked by the anti-immigrant lobby.
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This bill attacks the courts' power to review illegal actions by immigration enforcement agents. For some cases, it suspends habeas corpus for the first time since the Civil War. It also allows mass deportation sweeps without a hearing for anyone an agent says was in the country less than five years and was not ""lawfully admitted." And if for some reason the government cannot deport you, this Republican legislation would allow the Department of Justice and Department of Homeland Security to put you in jail for the rest of your life without any ability to go to court to appeal your imprisonment.
The current bill could send asylum-seekers back to persecution or torture. The government would -- with no check or balance on its powers -- be allowed to decide whether an individual is allowed to stay or be sent to another country, even ones like Libya, North Korea or Iran, as long as those governments **promise** not to engage in torture.
It would strip many legal immigrants of drivers' licenses. To top it off, the House Republicans would even make it more difficult for legal immigrants to obtain the identification papers necessary to prove that they are here lawfully by forbidding any state to accept a document issued by a foreign government -- such as a passport -- as proof of identity. As a result, some legal non-citizens and new Americans may be unable to obtain the documents needed to find employment, rent a house, drive a car or otherwise go about their daily lives.
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