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Why President Trump’s VOICE is Misplaced and Serves No One
The VOICE office announced by President Trump in his SOTU speech on Tuesday night is the most disturbing, offensive, and misplaced priority he could have chosen to address the pressing need for immigration reform.
Moreover, it astonishes me how anyone with an understanding of the reality of the overwhelmingly positive immigrant contributions to our workforce, our communities, and our society as a whole could applaud such folly. It is mind-boggling that a person who purports to understand immigration law can honestly praise its introduction. Cf. N. Rappoport, Opinion Contributor, The Hill, “On immigrant crime, Trump’s right. Americans deserve more data” (3/1/17).
Establishment of such a new office panders to unsubstantiated, and in fact, soundly refuted, fears of an immigrant crime wave, and fosters public hysteria that is utterly unfounded. Are there serious crimes committed by immigrants? Yes, although very few are violent offenses. They generally involve violations of state, not federal, law, and they are duly prosecuted and punished in our courts, without regard to the perpetrator’s immigration status. Any claimed value to the victim in connecting ICE to removable aliens for “information” is pure fantasy. Continue Reading
The Harm That Confirmation of Jeff Sessions as Attorney General Can Do to Immigration Law and Due Process
Claiming a “cycle of amnesty” as justification for opposing all immigration reform ever proposed in Congress during his tenure, including the Dream Act, nominee Jeff Sessions responded to Senator Dick Durbin that by electing Trump as President, “the people have spoken.”
Sessions argued in his confirmation hearing on January 10, 2017, that we should “fix this system” by passing immigration reform in Congress – reform that he opposed consistently while serving as a Senator. He refused to acknowledge the importance of protecting the status of those protected currently by DACA, President Obama’s executive order, and gave no guarantees about the fate of these individuals once Trump assumes the Presidency or during any extended period while reform legislation would be pending.
Sessions’ alarming refusal to acknowledge either his past or currently objectionable attitudes and actions as a Senator and a state official is made only more dismal by the Republican apologists on the Senate Judiciary Committee, who are attempting to paint Sessions’ history as irrelevant or nothing more than one reflecting permissibly different views on policy.
If (when) he is confirmed as Attorney General, Jeff Sessions will have an exclusive level of authority over the course of immigration law and policy, as well as its impact on those subject to the immigration laws. This power will manifest in 2 principal ways:
- in hiring and removing Immigration Judges and Board Members on the Board of Immigration Appeals
- in certifying and deciding immigration decisions made by the Board of Immigration Appeals
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