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WASHINGTON
- October 26 - Anti-terrorism
legislation that includes fundamental changes to our nation's
immigration law has passed the House and Senate and is about to be
signed into law. The American Immigration Lawyers Association
(AILA), the national association of more than 7,500 practicing
immigration attorneys, is concerned that implementation of the new
law preserve the important balance between security and liberties
that is so fundamental to our democracy.
"The broad new powers contained in this legislation must be used
wisely and judiciously, to prosecute real terrorists. We must
ensure that neither innocent people nor the Constitution be
trampled as this important criminal investigation proceeds," said
Jeanne Butterfield, AILA's executive director.
"We commend Representatives John Conyers (D-Mich.) and James
Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.), and Senators Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), Edward
Kennedy (D-Mass.), and Sam Brownback (R-Kansas) for their efforts
to ameliorate some of the worse aspects of the antiterrorism
legislation that were included in the proposal that the Bush
administration sent to Congress just a few weeks ago."
Notwithstanding these efforts, the measure that the President
will sign into law includes several troubling provisions. The new
law casts such a broad net that it will allow for the detention an<"eportation
of people engaging in innocent associational activity
and Constitutionally protected speech, and permit the indefinite
detention of immigrants and non-citizens who are not terrorists.
AILA will be working with Congress to develop oversight hearings to
monitor the impacts of the new law and develop appropriate
strategies and responses.
"It is important to develop effective responses that will deter
terrorism and enhance our nation's security," Butterfield
continued. "These responses must reflect the fact that we are
nation of immigrants and a country with a Constitution that upholds
individual rights and liberties-these are the things that make us
unique as a nation. We cannot compromise our security or our
values."
"As we craft responses to the terrorist threat, we must be wary
of false and harmful solutions to real problems," said Butterfield.
"We need to respond in ways that isolate terrorists, not America,
recognize that existing laws and procedures offer us significant
protections, and add to our deterrence capabilities by increasing
our intelligence capacities." These proposals include:
-- Increased funding for the Department of State and the
Immigration and Naturalization Service to help these agencies
enhance their technological capacities. Such funding needs to come
from direct Congressional appropriations, not from user fees.
-- The use of new technologies to achieve the most reliable
means of verifying identity. The federal government needs to fund
the development and use of these new technologies and make sure
various federal agencies coordinate compatible efforts in this
area.
-- Improved access to lookout lists by U.S. federal agencies, as
well as international law enforcement officials. We also must
include safeguards against potential abuse of this data that would
limit the re-dissemination of such information, ensure the security
and confidentiality of such information, protect privacy rights of
individuals subject to such information, and establish procedures
that determine who stays on and is removed from these lists.
-- Provision of accurate and timely intelligence information to
U.S. consulates abroad that are our nation's first line of defense.
We must ensure that U.S. consulates have the necessary intelligence
information and the technological capacity to use intelligence
information. We also need to upgrade the status of the consular
officer who has the all-important job of assessing whether someone
should be allowed to enter the U.S. This decision needs to be
reviewable. In these times of heightened scrutiny, such review is
vital to ensure the integrity of the system.
-- Expansion of U.S. pre-inspections programs to other airports
to increase the likelihood of a more thorough check. Such
pre-inspections would move our system from one that focuses on a
person's point-of-entry to one that focuses on their point of
origin. Any pre-inspection system must make adequate provision for
genuine refugees to seek asylum protection.
-- All airlines should transmit passenger lists to the
destination airport to be checked against the lookout list.
-- Multilateral strategies should be pursued with Canada and
Mexico to further enhance our security and to create a North
American Perimeter Safety Zone.
-- Our nation must ensure adequate personnel and technological
improvements at and between our ports of entry. We need to enhance
our data gathering at airports by mandating an entry/exit system
that would collect and correlate data about arrivals and
departures. A 1998 Senate report found that such a system at land
borders would contribute little to our security, and would be
exceedingly disruptive to commerce.
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