Lamar Smith | A United South Carolina

Why We We Shouldn’t Lock Up Immigrants Forever

Posted on September 19, 2011 by scjustice

From The (Orangeburg) Times & Democrat:

By VICTORIA MIDDLETON | Posted: Friday, September 16, 2011

A bill recently introduced in Congress by the House Judiciary Committee chairman, Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas) would strip immigrants of any opportunity to challenge their detention in front of a judge while doing nothing to address the serious issues of delay and lack of resources that already plague the U.S. immigration (court) system. The new bill would require the Department of Homeland Security to detain a large swath of immigrants, most of whom have no criminal history at all.

Rep. Smith claims that the bill, H.R.1932, will protect people from “dangerous criminals,” but it could lead to the detention of many other immigrants, including some lawful permanent residents. Productive members of our communities could be incarcerated with no opportunity to challenge their detention.

The immigration detention system is already overcrowded and costly. The system holds more than 33,000 individuals on average each day, at a cost of $1.9 billion a year. The cost to taxpayers is $45,000 per detainee per year and would increase if this bill is passed.

Those in immigration custody are not appointed attorneys and often have a hard time arranging representation; an estimated 84 percent of those detained do not have lawyers. Roughly half the people now in immigration detention have never been convicted of any crime.

This law could be more than unnecessary – it could be unconstitutional.

(more…)

Filed under: Deportation, immigrant community, Law Enforcement | Tagged: Department of Homeland Security, detention, Jim Clyburn, Lamar Smith | Leave a Comment »

The GOP’s Plan to Deport Abused Women

Posted on September 15, 2011 by scjustice

From Mother Jones:

Tayrawr Fortune/Flickr

A law backed by top House Republicans could lead to the forced removal of undocumented immigrants who are victims of domestic violence.

By Adam Serwer

Thu Sep. 15, 2011 3:00 AM PDT

House Republicans are pushing a bill that would remove all administrative discretion from deportation decisions—even if it means potentially deporting victims of domestic violence.

Rebeca Gonzales* is one of the women who could be left in the lurch. In February, she was arrested after calling 911 on her boyfriend, who she says after years of physical abuse was threatening to keep her from seeing her one-year-old child. When the police arrived, she tried to explain to them in Spanish why she had called—only to have the police angrily tell her to speak English. Convinced she had staged the incident, they ultimately arrested her instead of her boyfriend.

“I fainted because I never imagined that they would arrest me instead of him,” Gonzales said.

Gonzales later found herself cuffed to a hospital bed. Although the doctors told the police her body showed signs of physical abuse, she was booked anyway. The charges were ultimately dropped, but it was too late: Gonzales’ information had been forwarded to US Immigrations and Customs Enforcement via the Obama administration program known as Secure Communities. After calling the authorities for help in finding a safe haven for herself and her child, Gonzales found herself about to be deported.

Immigrations and Customs Enforcement eventually agreed to close Gonzales’ case after immigration activists turned her story into a symbol of what they see as the Obama administration’s draconian immigration policies. Back in Washington, though, Republicans were accusing the administration of not being draconian enough. In July, Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas), the chairman of the House judiciary committee, used an ICE memo urging agents to prioritize the removal of undocumented immigrants with criminal records to charge that Obama was instituting “backdoor amnesty.” (more…)

Filed under: Deportation | Tagged: abused, ACLU, America's Voice, battered, domestic violence, Frank Sharry, HALT Act, Hinder the Administration's Legalization Temptation Act, ICE, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Jennie Pasquarella, Lamar Smith, Republican, The Violence Against Women Act | Leave a Comment »

GOP Lawmaker Plans To Lure Back Migrant Farm Workers

Posted on September 9, 2011 by scjustice

From The New York Times:

By JULIA PRESTON

Published: September 8, 2011

A leading Republican lawmaker has proposed creating a program to bring 500,000 foreign migrant farm workers to the United States each year, responding to an outcry this summer from American farmers who said shortages of legally authorized labor were imperiling their crops.

The lawmaker, Representative Lamar Smith of Texas, the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, introduced his farm guest worker bill late on Wednesday and held a hearing on it in the House on Thursday. He is proposing a thorough overhaul of the existing guest worker program for agriculture, known as H-2A, which is shunned by most growers as too bureaucratic and costly for their fast-changing labor needs in fields and orchards.

Instead, farmers have turned to some 1.1 million illegal immigrants now estimated to be working in agriculture.

Mr. Smith offered his proposal after a bill he introduced in June, designed to prevent illegal immigrants from gaining jobs in this country, generated a wave of resistance from farmers. That bill would require all employers nationwide to use a federal electronic system, known as E-Verify, to confirm that new hires are legally authorized to work here.

Although Mr. Smith’s E-Verify bill includes a three-year grace period before it would take effect for agriculture, growers — including many Republicans — still balked, saying they would not support it unless Congress provided a supply of legal immigrants for farms.

Mr. Smith’s guest worker proposal adds an important piece to the Republican strategy for the angrily contested issue of immigration as Washington moves into campaign season. He framed his plan as an alternative to granting legal status to illegal immigrants already in the country, the approach President Obama supports. (more…)

Filed under: immigrant community, Migrant Workers | Tagged: agriculture, California Farm Bureau Federation, Chalmers R. Carr III, E-Verify, farmers, H-2C, Lamar Smith, South Carolina, USA Farmers | Leave a Comment »

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