New Immigration Reform Proposals

News from the Hill:  Last week, House Republican leaders announced their Border Security Now Agenda, “ten border security priorities” that the House will pass before going out to campaign. These include, for the most part, re-packaged enforcement measures that the House has already passed in HR 4437. Some of the more troubling provisions: legislating the inherent authority for local cops to enforce federal immigration laws; expanding expedited removal; codifying indefinite detention; limiting the power of federal courts to grant injunctive relief; and creating new grounds of inadmissibility/deportability for being a member of a criminal street gang (broadly written to extend to those who never committed a crime). The “ten priorities” have been packaged in four pieces of legislation. One (the Fence Act) has passed, and the others (mentioned below) are scheduled to be debated and voted on as early as tomorrow. In addition, there is a possibility for these bills to be rolled into the DHS Appropriations bill. AILA has an action alert on their website: http://capwiz.com/aila2/issues/alert/?alertid=9033541&type=CO In addition, CCIR (cirnow.org), the National Immigration Forum (immigrationforum.org) and the Rights Working Group (rightsworkinggroup.org) have information on the politics and policy (mainly politics) behind the House’s agenda. From Shoba Sivaprasad Wadhia, Esq. Senior Policy Associate/Counsel National Immigration Forum

KJ