By Cliff Montgomery – Apr. 30th, 2016
Donald Trump likes to talk a lot about the ‘weakness of U.S. immigrant laws’ in his stump speeches. He apparently feels that it’s a good idea to stick to a subject he knows nothing about.
Trump’s lack of knowledge became crystal clear this Monday, after Human Rights Watch released a scathing statement on current U.S. immigration policy.
“The United States Congress should repeal provisions in two 1996 immigration laws,” declared Human Rights Watch on Monday, “that have subjected hundreds of thousands of people to arbitrary detention, fast-track deportations, and family separation.”
“The U.S. appears to be coming to grips with the harm caused by its 90s-era crime laws,” stated Alison Parker, who serves as co-director of Human Rights Watch’s U.S program.
The “90s-era immigration laws also deserve serious scrutiny and reconsideration,” added Parker.
So just what is it Ms. Parker is talking about – and what is it that Trump and the corporate press don’t want you to know?
“President Bill Clinton signed the Anti-terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996, known as AEDPA, on April 24, 1996,” pointed out a recent statement from Human Rights Watch.
The law was passed shortly after the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, and “greatly expanded the grounds for detaining and deporting immigrants, including long-term legal residents,” according to the statement.
“It was the first U.S. law to authorize certain now-widely-used fast-track deportation procedures,” added the Human Rights Watch release.
Not long after that came the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act (IIRIRA), which became law in September 1996 it “made further sweeping changes to immigration laws,” declares the statement.
The IIRIRA “eliminated key defenses against deportation and subjected many more immigrants, including legal permanent residents, to detention and deportation,” added the release.
“IIRIRA defined a greatly expanded range of criminal convictions – including relatively minor, non-violent ones – for which legal permanent residents could be automatically deported,” according to Human Rights Watch.
This law “also made it much more difficult for people fleeing persecution to apply for asylum,” added the statement.
“Over the last two decades, Human Rights Watch has documented how these laws rip apart the families of even long-term legal residents,” pointed out the release.But wait, it gets even worse.
“The laws have also helped perpetuate a system of unnecessarily widespread immigration detention,” continued the statement.
The two controversial laws authorize “mandatory, sometimes prolonged detention during deportation proceedings for thousands of immigrants who have already served their criminal sentences for drugs or other crimes,” which would seem to be violations of the Double Jeopardy Clause found within the Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
The decision of the 1989 Supreme Court case U.S. v. Halper plainly states:
“This Court many times has held that the Double Jeopardy Clause protects against three distinct abuses: [1] a second prosecution for the same offense after acquittal [2] a second prosecution for the same offense after conviction and [3] multiple punishments for the same offense.”
The two 90s-era laws have even caused havoc for legitimate asylum seekers, as they “also require detention of non-citizens in expedited deportation procedures while they apply for asylum or humanitarian protection,” according to Human Rights Watch.
“Being detained was unbearable for me,” Oscar M. (pseudonym) stated in the release. In 2014, ‘Oscar’ was “mandatorily” detained for almost a year after coming to America seeking asylum from the Honduran police and other individuals in that country, who he says threatened to kill him after discovering that he is gay.
“Being detained was unbearable for me … I didn’t feel safe. I felt harassed and I wanted to give up, which would have been suicide,” he declared in the statement.In December 2014, ‘Oscar’ was granted the “right to remain in the U.S. and protection from deportation certifying that he met and exceeded the standards for refugee protection under U.S. law,” stated the release.
“Twenty years of unjust detention, deportation, and family separation is 20 years too much. Let this be the last anniversary for these terrible laws,” stated Alison Parker, co-director of Human Rights Watch’s U.S. Program.
