HispanicVista Columnists
Vicious attacks against immigrants should be warning to rest of us
By Roberto Miranda
Many Americans are turning a blind eye to the vicious and inhumane actions being taken against undocumented people in this country. These actions are being conducted by law makers in government who have taken to using terrorism as the rational for attacking immigrants—legal and illegal.
According to the Asian Pacific American Labor Alliance H.R. 4437, a federal law being pushed in Congress, is a law that will:
Criminalize millions of immigrants, including lawful permanent residents and legal nonimmigrants who accrue technical violations of immigration regulations. Section 203 of H.R. 4437 makes being "present in the United States in violation of the immigration laws or the regulations prescribed thereunder" a federal crime punishable by a prison sentence of one year and one day. But such violations would include lawful permanent residents who fail to report a change of address to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) within ten days, as well as university students on an F-1 visa who drop below a full course load or H-1B workers who lose their jobs and take too long to find another job. Section 201 of H.R. 4437 would make such "crimes" an "aggravated felony," subject to mandatory detention and virtually no relief from deportation."
Criminalize U.S. citizens and legal immigrants who come into contact with undocumented immigrants in their daily lives. Section 202 of H.R. 4437 would so expand the scope of smuggling, transporting, and harboring undocumented immigrants that U.S. citizens and lawful permanent residents who interact with undocumented immigrants in their professional or personal lives would run the risk of being prosecuted for the federal criminal offenses of smuggling, transporting, and/or harboring undocumented immigrants, even if they did not in fact know that they were dealing with undocumented immigrants. This would include not just employers, but also those who recruit or refer individuals for employment such as union hiring halls, temporary worker agencies, day laborer sites, worker centers, non-profits, and other job placement or referral programs. The bill disregards the fact that these organizations are not the employer, receive no direct remuneration for the work performed by the workers, and have no responsibility for the decision to employ anyone.
Mount an unprecedented attack on lawful permanent residents who are applying for U.S. citizenship. H.R. 4437 greatly curtails the power of federal courts to review DHS's actions (or lack thereof) on naturalization applications. Where the DHS fails to render a timely decision on naturalization applications, section 612 of H.R. 4437 would take away the federal district court's power to render a decision on the applications. Instead, it would only allow the court to remand the applications to DHS, the very agency that had failed to make a timely decision on the applications in the first place. Where the DHS has denied the naturalization applications, H.R. 4437 would also raise and shift the burden of proof to the applicant to show that the DHS's "denial of the application was not supported by facially legitimate and bona fide reasons."
Allow unscrupulous employers to challenge a worker's immigration status in retaliation for complaints about job conditions or attempting to join a union by allowing them to re-verify work authorization for any worker at any time.
History has shown that law enforcement alone will not deter illegal immigration. H.R. 4437 is another example of reactionary policies being pursued by a Congress dominated with fear mongers who lack creative and visionary methods of managing immigration in our country. Mostly GOP, these brain dead zealots opt instead to seek band-aid solutions that are costly and inhumane. H.R. 4437 will cause serious harm to our economy and to our reputation as a civilized and just nation around the world.
H.R. 4437 is also a reminder to us all of the insidious and vicious campaign being waged against humanity by power brokers more concerned about corporatization and nationalism than humanity and justice. This dangerous action against the immigrant people of our land is but a prelude to the campaign yet to come against the people of the United States by a government that has become nothing more than a brokerage firm for Wall Street.
The government eavesdropping authorized by the Bush Administration against the American people is just the start of open warfare against our civil liberties. Soon, more often than not, we will hear of the “Men-in-Black” knocking on doors dragging innocent Americans out of their beds, because they have become a “person of interest” in the “war against terrorism.”
Indeed, it is not terrorists or communists whom we must dread; it is our government, which has made the fight against terror a fight against freedom.
- "The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves."
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- Robert Miranda, a frequent contributing columnist to HispanicVista.com (http://www.hispanicvista.com/) is a national award winning columnist, Latino community activist and Editor-in-Chief of the Milwaukee Spanish Journal. Email at: rmiranda@wi.rr.com