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Hispanic
National Bar Association: Senate
and House Bills Fail America's Need for Fair and
Comprehensive Immigration Policy Reform
The Hispanic National Bar Association (HNBA) expresses serious concern
over key provisions in both the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives
immigration bills that now advance towards consideration by a Joint
House and Senate Conference Committee.
"The Senate and House bills do not provide reasonable or viable
solutions to our nation's immigration problem," stated HNBA National
President Nelson A. Castillo. "Our concern is that since the
Conference Committee begins its work on the basis of deficient Senate
and House bills, the opportunity for viable and effective immigration
reform shall continue to elude us.
"While the HNBA commends President Bush and members of the Senate
for attempting to move legislation forward with positive objectives,
such as increasing the penalties for the illegal exploitation of immigrants
and providing additional funding for our Immigration Courts and Border
Patrol, taken as a whole, the Senate and House bills do not represent
a fair, humane and comprehensive approach to the immigration policy
reforms that America needs," added Castillo.
As the Senate and House seek to address these bills in conference,
the HNBA calls on conference committee members to:
-- Adopt a program of earned legal status for undocumented workers
who are willing to fulfill reasonable requirements, but not by dividing
our immigrant community into arbitrary categories which will separate
millions of families.
-- Create a temporary worker program which provides for the labor
needed by American industry, but not by returning to 1930's-styled
"voluntary repatriation" which will uproot our communities
and damaging family life through massive deportations and separations.
-- Allow students already in this country, students who will respond
to the needs of American business to support our economy and help
this country continue to grow, to continue their education through
college and to earn a path to legal permanent residency.
-- Refrain from giving local and state police unprecedented authority
to enforce federal immigration laws. Any legislation that deputizes
local and state law enforcement officers without proper training and
background in immigration law enforcement runs the risk of increasing
racial and ethnic profiling in our country.
-- Avoid new laws that subject undocumented immigrants to harsh criminal
penalties for conduct done in order to be able to work in the United
States, or that subject lawfully admitted immigrants to deportation
without any consideration of circumstances such as length of residence,
family ties or military or other service in the United States.
-- Dispense with the political gamesmanship and fear mongering in
ancillary matters, such as calls for a national language and miles
of fencing, which will do nothing to meaningfully and effectively
address the core immigration issues at hand.
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The HNBA is a non-profit, national association representing the interests
of over 27,000 Hispanic American attorneys, judges, law professors,
law graduates, law students, legal administrators and legal assistants
or paralegals in the United States and Puerto Rico.
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