May, 10 2013, 08:20am EDT
ACLU Comment on First Day of Immigration Reform Markup
Encouraging Day for Civil Liberties, Including for Racial Profiling Reform
WASHINGTON
"The immigration reform bill remained largely intact and unscathed after the first day of markup," said Laura W. Murphy, director of ACLU's Washington Legislative Office. "The fact is that though the 'Gang of Eight' compromise has flaws, it represents movement in the right direction. We will continue to push for amendments that strengthen civil liberties and fight those that make the road to citizenship less fair, more difficult or more punitive."
Positive developments today included the passage of key amendments that strengthen civil liberties protections in the bill:
- Blumenthal 10 - Racial Profiling - One key provision of this amendment says that oversight will be extended to a program that reimburses states and localities for criminal prosecution and detention of people in immigration cases initiated by the federal government. For example, with this amendment, the Attorney General will not reimburse when there is reason to believe the detention or prosecution resulted from a violation of the law by a law enforcement official, such as an act of racial profiling.
- Feinstein 6 - Humane Conditions for Children in Customs and Border Patrol Custody
Extreme amendments that would have weakened the bill failed, including:
- Grassley 4, Cruz 1, and Sessions 9 - Border Enforcement on Steroids - Sen. Grassley's (R-Iowa) amendment would have required federal law enforcement authorities to establish operational control of the entire U.S.-Mexico border for six months before allowing aspiring Americans to earn legal status. As the Wall Street Journal recently editorialized, those "who claim we must 'secure the border first' [before allowing legalization for aspiring Americans] ignore the progress already made because their real goal isn't border security. It is to use border security as an excuse to kill immigration reform."
- Lee 4 - Unnecessary Hoops for Aspiring Americans - Would have added an unnecessary additional legislative process for temporary legal status applications by aspiring Americans to be processed. The Senate Judiciary Committee rightly decided that a path to lawful status and citizenship should not have to pass through another political gauntlet.
- Sessions 37 - Guts Border Patrol Use of Force Protections - Would have struck at the core of language highlighting the need for stronger protocols around Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) use of force incidents. Given the doubling of CBP agents at the border over the last decade and rise of incidents of abuses, it's encouraging to see that the bill's call for the creation of an oversight body known as the DHS Border Task Force remains intact.
Unfortunately, Grassley 1, which extends border enforcement build-up to areas not deemed to be high risk, did pass. This could lead to even more wasteful border spending in areas where it's not needed.
Also, Feinstein 1 unfortunately did pass, which would offer federal payments to state and local law enforcement agencies based on the charges, not convictions, of people they arrest. This would create an added financial incentive for local and state law enforcement agents to engage in racial profiling, making pretextual arrests of people they believe to be immigrants, even if they know the charges will not be sustained.
"We still have a long way to go before this bill lands on President Obama's desk and can become law," added Murphy. "But we will not rest until that happens because our nation's promise of freedom and our national security require that we bring as many of the 11million aspiring Americans out of the shadows, into legal status, and into a broad and inclusive road to full citizenship."
The American Civil Liberties Union was founded in 1920 and is our nation's guardian of liberty. The ACLU works in the courts, legislatures and communities to defend and preserve the individual rights and liberties guaranteed to all people in this country by the Constitution and laws of the United States.
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Once Again, Tom Cotton Blocks Bill to Shield Journalists From Betraying Sources
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Dec 10, 2024
Republican U.S. Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas on Tuesday again blocked the passage of House-approved bipartisan legislation meant to shield journalists and telecommunications companies from being compelled to disclose sources and other information to federal authorities.
Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) brought the Protect Reporters from Exploitative State Spying (PRESS) Act—which would prohibit the federal government from forcing journalists and telecom companies to disclose certain information, with exceptions for terroristic or violent threats—for a unanimous consent vote.
Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) argued Tuesday that passing the PRESS Act is "more important now than ever before when we've heard some in the previous administration talk about going after the press in one way or another," a reference to Republican President-elect Donald Trump's threats to jail journalists who refuse to reveal the sources of leaks. Trump, who has referred to the press as the "enemy of the people," repeatedly urged Senate Republicans to "kill this bill."
Cotton, who blocked a vote on the legislation in December 2022, again objected to the bill, a move that thwarted its speedy passage. The Republican called the legislation a "threat to national security" and "the biggest giveaway to the liberal press in American history."
The advocacy group Defending Rights and Dissent lamented that "Congress has abdicated their responsibility to take substantive steps to protect the constitutional right to a free press."
However, Seth Stern, director of advocacy at the Freedom of the Press Foundation, noted ways in which Senate Democrats can still pass the PRESS Act before Republicans gain control of the upper chamber next month:
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"American families are the big winner today, thanks to the Federal Trade Commission. The only people who stood to gain from the potential merger between Albertsons and Kroger were their wealthy executives and investors," asserted Liz Zelnick of Accountable.US. "The rest of us are letting out a huge sigh of relief knowing today's victory is good news for competitive prices and consumer access."
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Trump has picked Harmeet Dhillon as Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights. She has stated that it must be "made unsafe" for hospitals to provide trans care, and frequently shares Libs of TikTok posts. She intends to target trans people in blue states. Subscribe to support my journalism.
[image or embed]
— Erin Reed (@erininthemorning.com) December 10, 2024 at 8:14 AM
Reed continued:
Dhillon's most prominent work includes founding the Center for American Liberty, a legal organization that focuses heavily on anti-transgender cases in blue states. The organization's "featured cases" section highlights several lawsuits, such as Chloe Cole's case against Kaiser Permanente; a lawsuit challenging a Colorado school's use of a transgender student's preferred name; a case against a California school district seeking to implement policies that would forcibly out transgender students; and a lawsuit against Vermont for denying a foster care license to a family unwilling to comply with nondiscrimination policies regarding transgender youth.
Reed also highlighted Dhillon's attacks on state laws protecting transgender people, as well as her expression of "extreme anti-trans views" on social media—including calling gender-affirming healthcare for trans children "child abuse."
Last year, The Guardian's Jason Wilson reported that the Center for American Liberty made a six-figure payment to a public relations firm that represented Dhillion in both "her capacity as head of her own for-profit law firm and Republican activist."
Writing for the voting rights platform Democracy Docket, Matt Cohen on Tuesday accused Dhillon of being "one of the leading legal figures working to roll back voting rights across the country."
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As Maya Wiley, president and CEO of the Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, said in a statement Tuesday, "The Department of Justice's Civil Rights Division has the critical responsibility of enforcing our nation's federal civil rights laws and ensuring equal justice under the law on behalf of all of our communities."
"That means investigating police departments that have a pattern of police abuse, protecting the right to vote, and ensuring schools don't discriminate against children based on who they are," Wiley noted. "The nomination of Harmeet Dhillon to lead this critical civil rights office is yet another clear sign that this administration seeks to advance ideological viewpoints over the rights and protections that protect every person in this country."
"Dhillon has focused her career on diminishing civil rights, rather than enforcing or protecting them," she asserted. "Rather than fighting to expand voting access, she has worked to restrict it."
A staunch Trump loyalist, Dhillon has also embraced conspiracy theories including the former president's "Big Lie" that the 2020 presidential election was stolen, and has accused Democrats of "conspiring to commit the biggest election interference fraud in world history."
She was co-chair of the Republican National Lawyers Association when it launched Lawyers for Trump, a group that urged the U.S. Supreme Court to intervene on behalf of the former president after he lost the 2020 election.
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