Stop the "Son of" CLEAR Act once again!

Senator Saxby Chambliss has sponsored S.2717, the The Effective Immigration Enforcement Partnerships Act of 2008. The purpose of this bill is to provide local governments and law enforcement the resources, training, and authority to enforce U.S. immigration law at the local level. According to his website, aspects of the bill include:

• "Clarifying their authority to enforce federal immigration laws during their normal course of duty"
• "Expanding the 287(g) program to every state." Section 287(g) of the Immigration and Nationality Act authorizes state and local police to perform enforcement duties related to illegal immigration
• "Offering a basic training course for all state and local law enforcement officers"
• "Compensating state and local entities for immigration enforcement related expenses"

Congress often attempts to blackmail states through block-grants and other monetary (dis)incentives. Watch out.

 

In a civilized, free society, police has no business enforcing civil matters. This is one of those things that distinguishes a free nation from a tyranny. Immigration law, is a civil matter, not a criminal law (except in certain specific cases, for which FBI and ICE are responsible to act upon a federal jury indictment and other instruments of due process). Immigration, also, is one sole peculiarity in American jurisprudence in which defendants in this civil case can be jailed without lawful warrant (ICE can write its own arrest warrant, without having to go to a federal district court...an envy of every other federal agency), indefinitely, and burden of proof is on the defendant. The U.S. government even needs not present any proof or evidence customarily required in a criminal court. In fact, ICE does not even have to go to a real federal court; it has a so-called "immigration court" (Executive Office for Immigration Review) with a bogus "immigration judge" (who, in fact, is an employee of the U.S. Department of Justice, who answers to the same White House that writes the paycheck of Michael Chertoff). Simply put, this illegitimate system that deprives immigration detainees even a modicum of due process, is not at par with the criminal justice system, and as such no police should participate and be implicit in this enterprise.

 

Today, immigration detention and removal operations generate obscene profit to private businesses such as GEO Group, whose employees (non-union workers of private businesses!) have a pseudo-police power within their detention centers though they are in no way required to undergo the kind of rigorous training and background check usually required for federal policemen.

 

Proposed bills such as this undermines the bedrock of American society, civility, human rights, and most importantly, what makes an American community so special in the eyes of the world.