Our Stance on the Immigration Reform Bill: Support for Many Civil Liberties Provisions and Opposition to New Border Measures

By Laura W. Murphy, Director, ACLU Washington Legislative Office at 5:22pm

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You might be wondering where the ACLU stands on the revised bill now. The short answer is that we support most of it—especially the path to citizenship—and we encourage senators to pass the bill with further changes that will improve its impact on civil liberties.

The long answer is more complicated. Congress has a lot of work to do for the bill to come close to being entirely positive from a civil liberties perspective. For example, LGBT couples do not have the same rights as straight couples in immigration proceedings, and we remain concerned about the inclusion of a mandatory employment verification system. Under the best case scenario, this system will result in hundreds of thousands of workers being forced to visit government offices before they can get approval to work while doing little to stop unscrupulous employers who currently hire workers under the table. The bill takes significant steps toward a “cardless” national ID system which could be used to track and limit Americans’ movements and activities.

Yet, there is much to applaud in the bill:

• The roadmap to citizenship for 11 million people is wide, which will allow millions of aspiring Americans to be equal participants in our communities.
  
  
• The bill improves due process in deportation proceedings by letting immigration judges consider individual circumstances like American citizen family ties and military service to our country more often – a discretion significantly restricted in current law.
  
  
• It improves access to counsel for children and people with significant mental disabilities in deportation proceedings.
  
  
• It strengthens due process protections for hundreds of thousands of immigrants who are improperly locked behind bars every year.
  
  
• It improves oversight and accountability mechanisms over Department of Homeland Security agencies, including detention facilities that often engage in egregious violations of basic rights. It restricts the use of solitary confinement in immigration jails and limits enforcement activities in schools, churches and hospitals.

The ACLU is proud to have been a part of the coalition that fought for these meaningful, albeit imperfect, compromises, because they will make a real, substantive difference in the civil liberties and civil rights of millions of people.

But the legislation took a deeply troublesome turn last week on its way to the Senate floor. Changes were made to the bill at the eleventh hour that meddled with what was already an unprecedented expansion of border enforcement in the base bill and increased it to obscene levels. These expenditures are wasteful, unnecessary and lack government oversight or accountability, and they put everyone who lives, travels, and works near the border at risk.

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http://www.aclu.org/blog/immigrants-rights/our-stance-immigration-reform-bill-support-many-civil-liberties-provisions