Thread: New immigration bill evidence of ugly trend

http://www.dailybruin.ucla.edu/news/art ... p?id=36425

New immigration bill evidence of ugly trend

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
By Juan Redin

The Border Protection, Antiterrorism, and Illegal Immigration Control Act of 2005, HR 4437, introduced by House Judiciary Chairman Rep. James Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.) will make all 11 million undocumented immigrants aggravated felons, subjecting them to deportation, imprisonment and depriving them of any access to a hearing prior to deportation ("Send Your Thoughts," March 16).

This is the most repressive immigration bill in decades. It would deprive immigrants of important due process rights, divide families, criminalize undocumented status, and drive undocumented immigrants – the most exploited group in our country – even further underground.

Further, the bill could hold social service agencies and church groups who offer support to undocumented immigrants accountable and at risk of criminal prosecution as smugglers. Employers of undocumented immigrants could face similar prosecution and substantially raised fines.

This bill runs contrary to the principles of inclusion and equality. Immigrants are honest and decent people who continue to work to build areas of our nation into vibrant centers of social and economic life. We're a country of immigrants.

Yet, the nation is embarking on a xenophobic, nationalist, and divisive debate over how to stem the flow of undocumented immigrants, especially from Mexico and Central America, and what to do about the undocumented workers already living here.

The atmosphere in Congress is so poisonous that even President Bush's guest worker plan is being presented as a liberal alternative, despite the fact that it could benefit some of the largest corporate interests in the U.S. Allowing corporations to contract for hundreds of thousands of temporary guest workers is no answer.

Let us not forget the hundreds of thousands of Mexican braceros who were recruited for U.S. agribusiness. If they went on strike, they were deported, and if resident farm workers tried to unionize, growers simply used other braceros to replace them. The proposed guest worker program would be just as abusive.

It is time to realize that people will continue to come to the U.S. so long as gross economic inequality continues to grow between rich and poor countries, even if the frontier between the U.S. and Mexico becomes an armed camp, and new walls are built reminiscent of the Cold War.

These migrants do not seek to injure their new host countries, but to work and provide for their families.

It is time we support a comprehensive immigration reform that will bring the undocumented community out of the shadows and allow them a lawful path to citizenship.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Redin is a student at the UCLA School of Law.

It is time we support a comprehensive immigration reform that will bring the undocumented community out of the shadows and allow them a lawful path to citizenship.

I am so tired of hearing how they are "in the shadows" cowering in fear from their US overlords. Those 100,000+ in Chicago didn't seem to be hiding or fearful.