Posted on 04/26/2009 4:53:46 AM PDT by stan_sipple
Cities and states that are trying to work out their own solutions to illegal immigration are not making constructive changes and are slowing efforts in fixing what is a federal problem, a national immigrant-rights advocate said.
Legislation aimed at curbing illegal immigration, whether on the state or local level, has instead amounted to costly legal battles and divided communities, said Lucas Guttentag, director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s Immigrants’ Rights Project, in an interview with The Associated Press.
“They’ve diverted attention from addressing real problems, so I don’t think they’ve helped at all. In fact, I think they’ve hurt. They’ve caused people to focus on the wrong issue,” he said Saturday when asked if such legislation has sent a message to Washington about the urgent need for solutions.
He echoed those sentiments later Saturday as he delivered the keynote address at the ACLU Nebraska banquet in Lincoln. He urged the crowd of more than 100 to “bring the protection of immigrants into the modern period.”
The local measures are among the great challenges to civil liberties today, he said.
The Constitution was carefully written to guarantee certain basic rights to all people, including the right to due process, regardless of citizenship, he said.
“Our job is to ensure that our immigration policy and our immigration laws guarantee those fundamental principles that the Constitution requires, that our values demand and that our principles stand for,” he said.
Local immigration measures vary widely across the country. Some communities have focused on requiring employers to verify the legal status of the people they hire. Other communities have joined in a federal program that allows local law enforcement to train for and enforce federal immigration law.
Nebraska measures, including a recently passed bill (LB403) to keep illegal immigrants from collecting public benefits and a measure in Fremont that seeks to ban renting housing to and hiring illegal immigrants, are among the misguided efforts, he said.
Communities have more pressing issues before them, including dealing with an economic slump, creating jobs and grappling with education needs, he said.
Supporters of the local measures have said they’re needed to make up for lax enforcement by federal officials.
“I think everybody would say that our immigration system is broken. It’s not working for businesses, it’s not working for families. It’s not working for immigrants, it’s not working for our economy,” he said. “There needs to be major overhaul of the federal immigration laws, but that has to be done in a way that serves the entire national interest.”
Guttentag said he’s optimistic about talk of immigration reform on the federal level getting under way soon, but he stressed that many challenges remain.
“We have an incredible opportunity with this new administration,” he said. “But it’s not going to happen without us pushing and fighting every single step of the way.”
What kind of effort would be needed to go after the law license of an ACLU lawyer?
Translation: “The state and local efforts are making us burn through the ACLU and other’s legal fees at a fast pace and we can not afford this.”
Anytime “a national immigrant-rights advocate” says something is the wrong approach, that means it is working.
It’s up to the states.
The National Gummint is AWOL on the subject. R’s want cheap labor and D’s want the illegal’s votes.
“Communities have more pressing issues before them, including dealing with an economic slump, creating jobs and grappling with education needs, he said.”
It could be argued that the presence of Illegal immigrants has contributed to creating these very, “pressing issues” and if they go away the problems may be solved. Deport them, all 12-20 million of them!!
that must be why they arent defending us from Napolitano’s attacks on our civil rights (sarc)
doing just their small part to remove invaders from our country is not important (sarc)
LOL! I hadn’t thought of that. The poor old harpy has been getting a bum rap.
Gee and how ironic is it that one of the reasons given for the over 125% increase in fees for immigration costs was to speed the process so immigration forms would be speedily go through the system. Instead forms which were introduced into the system in 2007 would be processed by the END of 2009! Don’t believe me? Go to the United States Citizen and Immigration System and type in Nebraska then try and find out when the forms submitted in 2007 would be processed. Surprise, surprise, they will be processed by the end of 2009! How’s that for speedy processing?
What Federal Effort? ... Ping!
the aclu is supposed to advocate for free speech isnt it? I have not seen them defend any right-wingers around here for a while. Must be they are so busy defending illegals (sarc)
The Terry Anderson Show...
Terry’s guest tonight will be Rick Oltman...
Comprehensive AMNESTY for all ...
Agree ??? Disagree ???
Call Terry LIVE 9-10 PM PST at (866) 870-57521
LIVE stream at http://krla870.townhall.com/
http://www.republicbroadcasting.org/index.php?cmd=listenliv
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2238409/posts
I live in the peoples republic of new york so I guess that you and I can just scream till we’re blue in the face and your username says exactly how much of a response we can expect. As for Rivera, he’s not going to do anything that brings negative light to his bud.
I’m not giving up but I sure do get frustrated sometimes!!
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