October 19, 2004 Letter to Senators Warner and Allen and Representative Moran
PO Box 8208
Alexandria, VA 22306-8208
October 19, 2004
The Honorable John William Warner
United States Senate
225 Russell Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510-4601
The Honorable George F. Allen
United States Senate
204 Russell Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510-4604
The Honorable James P. Moran
U.S House of Representatives
2239 Rayburn House Office Building
Washington, DC 20515-4608
Dear Senators Warner and Allen and Representative Moran:
As your constituent, I urge you to oppose the current intelligence reform bill (H.R. 10) that would drastically curtail basic fairness in the nation’s immigration system. I urge you to tell House and Senate leadership to strip these un-American provisions from the bill before bringing it to a final vote.
As a former Marine and lover of liberty I find myself perpetually disgusted with expensive, civil liberties encroaching, big government programs like the ones included in H.R. 10. How any supporter of small government or the Constitution can support such encroachments is beyond me.
This bill attacks the courts’ power to review illegal actions by immigration enforcement agents. For some cases, it suspends habeas corpus for the first time since the Civil War. It also allows mass deportation sweeps without a hearing for anyone an agent says was in the country less than five years and was not “lawfully admitted. And if for some reason the government cannot deport you, the Republican legislation would allow the Department of Justice and Department of Homeland Security to put you in jail for the rest of your life without any ability to go to court to appeal your imprisonment.
The current bill could send asylum-seekers back to persecution or torture. The government would — with no check or balance on its powers — be allowed to decide whether an individual is allowed to stay or be sent to another country, even ones like Libya, North Korea or Iran, as long as those governments **promise** not to engage in torture.
It would strip many legal immigrants of driver’s licenses. To top it off, the House Republicans would even make it more difficult for legal immigrants to obtain the identification papers necessary to prove that they are here lawfully by forbidding any state to accept a document issued by a foreign government — such as a passport — as proof of identity. As a result, some legal non-citizens and new Americans may be unable to obtain the documents needed to find employment, rent a house, drive a car or otherwise go about their daily lives.
Once again, I urge you to oppose the current intelligence reform bill (H.R. 10) that would drastically curtail basic fairness in the nation’s immigration system.
I look forward to hearing your thoughts on this matter.
Sincerely,
James Landrith