FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Media@dcaclu.org
WASHINGTON - With a vote in the Senate on immigration reform pending, the
American Civil Liberties Union urged lawmakers to oppose the flawed legislation
that fails to protect privacy and due process rights.
"Our fundamental freedoms should not be undermined through a flawed
immigration reform bill," said Caroline Fredrickson, Director of the ACLU
Washington Legislative Office. "The Senate bill is filled with provisions that
unnecessarily compromise our freedoms and privacy and place undue burdens on the
American worker. The Senate must reject this unsound legislation."
The House had already adopted its immigration reform bill late last year,
with an "enforcement-only" approach to immigration. While the Senate bill had
initially rejected a similar approach, recently adopted amendments have brought
the Senate bill closer to the flawed approach taken by the House. For example,
the Senate passed an amendment authorizing the building of 370 miles of fencing
along the Mexican border, and an amendment to make English the official
"national" language.
The ACLU, while opposing the requirement in the bill that all employers check
all new hires against a government database, applauded the worker protection,
due process and privacy protections that the Senate added to the employment
verification provisions of the bill. Under the bill as amended, workers would
have a real administrative and judicial process for challenging erroneous
government data that results in denial of work, and could recover back pay if
that happens. The ACLU called on the House to support those protections in the
upcoming conference negotiations.
The ACLU also decried provisions in the bill that would expand the indefinite
detention of non-citizens ordered deported to countries that will not accept
them and that penalize as "smuggling" some humanitarian assistance provided to
refugees by churches and other charitable organizations.
"The Senate bill must be rejected," said Timothy Sparapani, an ACLU
Legislative Counsel. "Congress must not pass an immigration bill until these
flawed provisions are corrected."
The ACLU letter to Senate on the immigration bill can be read
at:
www.aclu.org/immigrants/gen/25664leg20060525.html
