October 24, 2004 Letter to Senators Warner and Allen and Representative Moran
PO Box 8208
Alexandria, VA 22306-8208
October 24, 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:
I urge you to support S. 2845, the National Intelligence Reform Act of 2004, as Senate conferees meet with their House counterparts to conference this bill with H.R. 10. As you know, S. 2845 passed the Senate with broad bipartisan support and was endorsed by the 9/11 Commission. It does not include the harmful and divisive anti-immigrant provisions included in H.R. 10, the partisan measure that passed the House. These controversial provisions will not enhance our security, and should not be considered in the context of national intelligence reform legislation. I strongly urge you to oppose H.R. 10 and reject the following troubling measures:
Section 3006 — Prohibition on Acceptance of the Consular Identification Card: This provision would prohibit federal employees from accepting consular identification cards. However, in a security-conscious environment, people who are here, whatever their status, must be able to prove their identity. Many cities, counties and law enforcement agencies accept consular identification cards as valid forms of identification.
Section 3007 — Expedited Removal: This provision significantly expands the expedited removal regime and would subject all individuals who entered the U.S. without inspection to expedited removal unless they have been physically present in the U.S. for more than 5 years. The ability of a person to avoid expedited removal by proving five years of continuous physical presence will be especially difficult for trafficking victims and battered women whose abusers control the necessary evidence to establish residence. Expedited removal in its current limited form has created significant due process concerns; this provision would magnify those concerns immeasurably.
Sections 3008, 3010 and 3033: These provisions encompass key aspects of the so-called “Fairness in Immigration Litigation Act (H.R. 4406) that would further undermine the availability of basic due process protections for noncitizens by: prohibiting habeas corpus review of a variety of immigration decisions; raising the bar substantially for a grant of asylum; prohibiting federal courts from granting stays of deportation while a case is pending except in extraordinary cases; and authorizing the government to remove foreign nationals to countries that lack a functioning government as well as countries that refuse to accept the return of such foreign nationals so long as the country does not physically prevent the return.
Section 3009 — Revocation of Visas and Other Travel Documents: This provision makes individuals who enter the U.S. on a valid visa that is subsequently revoked by the State Department subject to removal. This provision would prohibit all administrative and judicial review of the revocation decision. Thus, an individual whose visa is revoked based on false information (or other errors) would be removable from the U.S. without the opportunity to challenge the basis for the removal.
Section 3031 — Expanded Inapplicability of Restriction on Removal: This provision prohibits individuals who are removable for having engaged in (at any time in the past) terrorist activities (as that phrase is broadly defined in the INA) from invoking the protections of withholding of removal. Currently, the bar to relief under withholding of removal applies only to those convicted of serious crimes or those that the government determines are “a danger to the security of the United States.”
Section 3032 — Detention of Aliens Barred from Restriction on Removal Pending Removal: This provision authorizes DHS, in its “unreviewable discretion” to detain indefinitely anyone who has been ordered removed, but who may be persecuted if returned to their home country, if that person has been convicted of a serious crime. Moreover, it would require DHS to detain anyone in the category described above who has been granted deferral of removal under the Convention Against Torture, until the person is removed. Perversely, it also would require DOS to seek diplomatic assurances from the very country that an immigration judge has determined would torture the person, that the country will not torture him if returned.
Section 3034 — Inadmissibility Due to Terrorist and Terrorist-Related Activities: This provision amends section 411 of the USA PATRIOT Act to make it even easier to bar non-citizens who are members of or support any political organization that has used violence, even if the organization has not been designated as a “foreign terrorist organization.” Section 3034 also expands inadmissibility to include innocent spouses and minor child, regardless of whether they have disavowed their family members’ activities.
Section 3035 — Deportability of Terrorists: This provision makes the new, broader grounds of inadmissibility contained in Section 3034 a ground of removability. This ground of removability is made retroactive and could be used to deport long-term, lawful residents, even if the association rendering them removable occurred decades earlier and was legal at the time.
Section 3052 — Minimum Document Requirements and Issuance Standards for Federal Recognition: This provision bars Federal agencies from accepting driver’s licenses or other ID cards issued by a state unless certain overly burdensome requirements are satisfied. Not only would these requirements grind to a halt the issuance of driver’s licenses throughout the country, they also would lead to a de facto immigration status requirement. Such a result would severely undermine the law enforcement utility of the Department of Motor Vehicle databases by discouraging individuals from applying for licenses.
Thank you for your considering my views.
Sincerely,
James Landrith