The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights

House Immigration Enforcement Bills

Speech by Wade Henderson on September 21, 2006.

Good afternoon. I'm Wade Henderson, Executive Director of the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, the nation's oldest, largest, and most diverse civil and human rights coalition. I'm happy to join in speaking out against this very unfortunate course that the House of Representatives is taking today in the ongoing debate over immigration policy.

LCCR is especially troubled by the bills being brought up today because, simply put, they violate fundamental principles of civil and human rights. The bills that the House is considering would have little impact in limiting the flow of undocumented immigrants, and would only compound the mistakes that it already made a decade ago, which is the last time it tried a heavy-handed, enforcement-only approach to overhauling our immigration laws. In 1996, Congress tried a "get tough" approach by enacting the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act - which just like the bills today - promised to solve the issue of unauthorized immigration and also of criminal activity by people who aren't supposed to be here.

So what was the result? What has taken place in the past ten years? Well, I think it's safe to say that unauthorized immigration hasn't been brought under control. And the consequences of those laws have been truly devastating in some unexpected ways. First, they have simply driven undocumented immigrants who fear deportation further underground. Second, detention and deportation laws designed to "get tough" on crime by immigrants have turned out to be every bit as cruel as mandatory minimum sentences in the criminal justice system, in that you've had a wave of people who spend their whole lives paying for minor offenses.

Take the example of Joao Herbert, who was adopted in Brazil by an American couple and brought to the United States at the age of six. At the age of eighteen, he had his one and only run-in with the law, for selling marijuana. He was never sent to jail, but under the 1996 laws - despite the fact that the United States was all he knew, he was sent back to Brazil, no ifs, ands or buts, and never to see his family again.

That is the sort of mistake that Congress is set to make again today. In fact, one of the bills the House plans to bring up today wouldn't even require people to be convicted of crimes before they can be locked up or deported - just being accused of gang membership would be enough.

To make things worse, there is another provision in these bills that would make it harder for the federal courts to rein in the Department of Homeland Security when it inevitably goes too far. It would make judges jump through numerous new hoops in order to grant injunctive relief against the government, and would actually let DHS put rulings on hold - through what is called an "automatic stay" - on some immigration rulings by federal judges.

This should come as incredibly offensive to anyone who believes in due process of law and a system of checks and balances. It is certainly offensive from a civil rights standpoint. For over 50 years, the federal courts have played an indispensable role when it comes to interpreting and enforcing civil and human rights laws. But some forces in Congress - those most opposed to equality - have tried to retaliate. In the 1970s, for example, some members of Congress tried to keep courts from hearing cases that involved desegregation efforts. Fortunately, cooler heads usually prevailed. But letting Congress interfere with the ability of courts to do their job in immigration cases is going to set a very dangerous precedent that will hurt all Americans when their rights are in danger. It is especially dangerous in this case - where Congress would basically let DHS - of all agencies - say that "even when we lose, we win."

There has been a lot of talk, on and off Capitol Hill, about the motives of the Congressional leadership in bringing bills up like the ones they're debating today. I will just say this: civil and human rights shouldn't be a partisan political issue. Period. We've seen that Congress can do better - when it wants to - as it recently proved in the bipartisan reauthorization of the Voting Rights Act.

We call on all members of Congress - in both parties - to reject feel-good, hot-flash, anti-immigrant invective. We urge them to work together to seek comprehensive immigration reform that provides meaningful solutions to a problem that all Americans agree needs to be fixed. Thank you.