Mass Deportation Bill?

Mass Deportation Measures?

While the DAPA and Expanded DACA programs are undergoing litigation between the Justice Department and federal court system, the House of Representatives is working on removal legislation. The Michael Davis, Jr., and Danny Oliver in Honor of State and Local Law Enforcement Act would be the most severe form of immigration enforcement Congress has passed recently (if it did pass). The proposed legislation contains four parts:

• Being in the United States without authorization is a civil offense. The bill seeks to make unauthorized presence a crime.
• It would grant state and local law enforcement the power to enforce immigration law. Immigration law is firmly settled as federal law and non federal law enforcement would be enabled to detain anyone with probable cause of being present in the country without authorization.
• Any immigrant apprehended by local law enforcement would be taken to federal custody for deportation. The federal government currently has discretion in that choice.
• The bill would alter the priority system created by the November 20, 2014 executive action memos and announcement and make deportation nearly mandatory.

The point is to reduce chances of prosecutorial discretion and deferred action, means for unauthorized immigrants to remain in the country. HR 1148 would overturn the Supreme Court’s decision in Arizona v. U.S., which affirmed that states and localities should not be enacting and enforcing their own immigration laws. The House attempted to criminalize unlawful presence in 2005, but that measure did not succeed after massive nonviolent protests throughout the country.

The American Immigrant Lawyers Association has strongly condemned the bill, which is a second attempt of the previously failed “SAFE Act” from 2005. Aside from harmful to American families, businesses, and the economy, it is “fundamentally inconsistent with the principles of due process and fairness grounded in the Constitution.”