The New York Civil Liberties Union today commended a bipartisan group of eight U.S. senators for proposing comprehensive immigration reform legislation that would provide a pathway to citizenship for 11 million undocumented immigrants living and working in the United States. "This proposal represents an important first step for many New York families that have for too long been forced into the shadows by a dysfunctional immigration system, but it creates problems that will threaten the privacy and liberty of immigrants and citizens alike," NYCLU Executive Director Donna Lieberman said. "While we're pleased the proposal provides a pathway to citizenship, it imposes too many burdens on aspiring citizens. People who have been convicted of minor crimes and those who cannot afford to pay hefty fines should not be excluded. Moreover, the bill needlessly expands wasteful border spending and mandates a costly and invasive employment verification system (E-Verify) that threatens civil liberties. "The NYCLU will work tirelessly to achieve workable immigration reform that respects everyone's civil rights and liberties." A summary of the Senate bill is available here. As President Obama and the Congress take on immigration reform, the NYCLU will work with lawmakers to ensure that they enact fair, sensible reform that will:
  • Create a pathway to citizenship for all 11 million aspiring citizens. This means that the citizenship process should be open, rather than contingent on additional, unnecessary spending at the border. Likewise, it should be immediate, rather than taking at least 13 years for the majority of immigrants. And finally, all immigrants should have the opportunity to fulfill their dreams, even those with a non-violent misdemeanor on his or her record.
  • Transform border enforcement and not waste taxpayer money on unnecessary enforcement measures. According to Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) itself, unauthorized border crossings at both the northern and southern borders have reached historic lows, yet spending on border enforcement continues to rise. As a result, in places like New York, border patrol agents with too little to do are harassing people living and working in communities as far away from the border as Rochester. They are stopping and interrogating people outside of churches and hospitals; intervening when Spanish-speakers call 911; even arresting U.S. citizens who give rides to their immigrant neighbors, co-workers or employees. Comprehensive immigration reform should reduce CBP agents' jurisdiction from 100 miles to 25 miles from the border, and focus on better training for its agents.
  • Respect our privacy and not create a national ID system or include error-prone identification systems that harm fundamental privacy rights. E-Verify, a program included in the Senate bill, would obligate employers to run all newly hired individuals through an electronic system to verify their eligibility to work in this country. Essentially, the system would require all Americans to receive government approval to work. In places where E-Verify is already being uses, data errors and technical glitches have caused lost job opportunities and significant delays in finding work. Indeed, research has found that naturalized citizens are 30 times more likely than native born citizens to receive an error from E-Verify. The government should not hinder people's ability to work, especially in the current economy. And workers shouldn't need the government's permission to take a job. We cannot sacrifice traditional American values prizing labor and privacy for bad ideas; we need real solutions.
  • End state and local intrusions into immigration policy and enforcement. Under presidents Bush and Obama, the Department of Homeland Security has increasingly delegated immigration enforcement to local police departments. Local immigration enforcement wastes scarce resources and hinders law enforcement's ability to investigate real crimes and respond to emergencies. Immigrants, fearful that they might be deported, don't report information about crime, weakening public safety. The record shows that local enforcement of immigration law invites rampant racial profiling. Innocent people who look or sound “foreign” – including U.S. citizens – are stopped or asked for proof of legal status.
  • Restore basic due process protections. Last year, 429,000 people were kept in administrative detention – some in solitary confinement – pending a court's decision on their removal. This system runs against basic human rights: no one should be in immigration detention without a constitutionally adequate bond hearing, where the government bears the burden of showing that detention is necessary to protect against danger to the community or flight risk, and that no alternative release conditions would suffice. And certainly, no one should be kept in solitary confinement while in immigration detention. Comprehensive immigration reform should restore judicial discretion to consider factors like family and community connections in reviewing applications for legal status. And judges should also end mandatory deportation for minor, non-violent and long-ago convictions.
By adopting these practical solutions, Congress can fix our immigration system and uphold our nation's values.