Lawmakers Call for Passage of Immigration Bill to Repeal Provisions of 1996 Act
WASHINGTON, March 07–Lawmakers on Capitol Hill yesterday called on the Bush Administration to support passage of legislation that would overturn a 1996 law that Congressman Barney Frank said violated the Constitution.
The 1996 Immigration Reform Act denies immigrants who have committed two crimes the right to public benefits and a range of due process and fairness protections, according to the bill’s sponsor, John Conyers Jr of Michigan, the senior Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee. “We grant due process rights to citizens and non-citizens alike,” he said, “not out of some soft-hearted sentimentality, but because we believe that these rights form an important cornerstone to maintaining civilized society
Some of the key provisions of the proposed Restoration of Fairness in Immigration Act are providing the Attorney General with discretion to release immigrants from detention if he determines that they pose no security risk, restoring there right to a due-process hearing before an immigration judge and repealing portions of the 1996 law that retroactively permit deportation of permanent legal resident for minor offenses.
Mr. Frank, one of 24 co-sponsors and the second-ranking Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, told immigrant advocacy groups at a press conference yesterday that the bill has no connection to the events of Sept. 11. “It is very important that we help people understand it has zero relevance to the mass [destruction] of Sept. 11,” he said. “This [bill] predates it by five years·. This has nothing to do with terrorism, has nothing to do with what the Justice Department is doing.”
Mr. Conyers, however, said assaults on the rights of immigrants after Sept. 11 justify passage of his bill. “The Justice Department is now holding deportation hearings in secret and detaining immigrants even after they are ordered released,” he said. “The Attorney General is reducing both the independence and number of judges that handle the appeals of immigration cases. We are fending off legislation almost daily intended to reduce if not eliminate immigration to this country.”
Mr. Frank added: “Nothing that we are talking about would make people non-deportable. It just wouldn’t make it automatic.”
Members of Congress are being urged to sponsor the bill by 76 advocacy groups, including the Massachusetts Immigrant and Refugee Advocacy Coalition. “The overwhelming impact of the ’96 bill was borne on immigrants,” said Victor Docouto, executive director of MIRA. “A huge slew of elderly people – who had worked here – were stripped of their benefits [upon passage of the bill]. All of those folks overnight lost their rights to [Supplemental Security Income] benefits.”
Docouto added that a later act amended the ’96 bill slightly – non-citizens residing in the United States before 1996 received benefits, but those arriving after the bill’s passage needed to live in the United States for five years or become a citizen to receive benefits.
Most states complied with the federal government’s stripping immigrants of benefits under Medicaid, the Children’s Health Insurance Program, food stamps, job training and housing, among other programs, although Massachusetts made the effort to lessen the severity of the bill on immigrants. “Massachusetts was one of the few states in the Union to develop a safety net,” Docouto said. “While the impact [of the Immigration Reform Act] has been significant, the impact has been mitigated.”
“We must ameliorate the harshest provisions of the 1996 immigration laws and restore needed protections for these deserving individuals,” Senator Ted Kennedy, a leading supporter of the bill in the Senate, said in a statement. “Permanent residents who committed offenses long before the enactment of the 1996 laws should be able to apply for relief from removal as it existed when the offense was committed·. Current immigration laws punish residents out of proportion to their crimes. Relatively minor offenses are now considered aggravated felonies, and many permanent residents who did not receive criminal convictions or serve prison sentences are precluded from all relief from deportation.”
Written for the New Bedford Standard-Times in New Bedford, Mass.
