MARCH 26 - Members of the Midwest Coalition of Human Rights have sent a letter to the Secretary of Homeland Security, Janet Napolitano, urging her to reform existing ICE policies on immigration enforcement and to push for comprehensive immigration reform.

“President Obama has pledged to lead an administration committed to civil and human rights that will uphold our heritage as a nation of immigrants.  We stand ready to work with you to fulfill this commitment.  Specifically, we urge to you to stop the use of large-scale immigration enforcement actions, both in the workplace and in communities.  Your review of enforcement strategies should ensure security is cost-effective, protects due process, and respects basic civil and human rights.  Finally, we strongly urge you to discontinue federal government reliance upon state and local actors to enforce immigration laws.  Such practices lead to an unequal protection of laws among different local jurisdictions, racial profiling, and to a fueling of an anti-immigrant atmosphere, results that run directly counter to the vision of the new Obama Administration.”

The letter also includes our recommendations for comprehensive immigration reform legislation that ensures the protection of due process and fair and humane enforcement.

MCHR’s Immigrant Detention Committee works to uphold the human rights and to protect the due process rights of immigrant detainees, particularly those held in county jails under contract with ICE throughout the Midwest. The Committee seeks to change detention conditions in facilities holding immigrants in the Midwest, affect reform of detention policy at the regional and national levels, reframe the public debate on immigrant detainees within the larger scope of human rights, and create a constituency that promotes the rights of immigrants, refugees, and asylum seekers.

READ MCHR'S LETTER HERE

By Trisha Chokshi, MCHR Staff
03/26/09