Is a Bill Like SB 1070 the Best the House Can Do?
Today the House Judiciary Committee begins debating a few immigration bills instead of following the Senate’s approach of tackling the issue with one comprehensive bill that includes a roadmap to citizenship. Just when we have forward momentum in Senate, the House has decided to send us backward. There are two particular bills being debated by the committee this week that are very troubling. Here’s what you need to know and why we need you to act!
The first bill, ironically titled the “SAFE Act,” is essentially an attempt to make Arizona’s racial profiling law the model for our country. Here’s what it does:
- It focuses on locating, detaining, and encouraging the deportation of undocumented immigrants, making communities unsafe because people stop reporting crimes for fear of deportation.
- It criminalizes undocumented status and anyone who provides assistance to these immigrants, making millions of immigrants potentially subject to criminal prosecution, which is reminiscent of the Sensenbrenner bill of 2005. Yes, that’s right—the one that sent millions of people marching into the streets.
The second bill to be considered is the “Agriculture Guestworker Act,” which would roll back worker protections for all farmworkers, allowing employers to exploit the foreign workers who put food on our tables and consequently drive down wages for U.S. workers.
These are not solutions for our complex immigration system. Worse yet, neither provide a roadmap to citizenship for millions of immigrants, something that poll after poll shows the majority of Americans support.
Send a letter to your representative now and tell them you expect more!
Our country deserves serious solutions to fix our immigration system, and these bills are far from that. The House should take up a comprehensive bill that addresses all of our nation’s concerns and includes a roadmap to citizenship for the 11 million aspiring Americans at its core.
