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A View from the Experts: Organizations disagree about immigration policy after attack on the nation
Sunday, September 30, 2001 By Lynda Guydon Taylor, Post-Gazette Staff Writer
Depending on who's talking, recommendations for changing the nation's immigration law either tread on our civil liberties or are seen as too little, too late.
On the one side are groups such as the American Immigration Lawyers Association, and on the other are those such as the Federation for American Immigration Reform.
One proposal basically would provide for indefinite detention based on suspicion that an immigrant is a threat to national security, said Jeanne Butterfield, the association's executive director.
But her counterpart at the federation, Dan Stein, sees it differently. People are getting bogged down on indefinite detention when the objective is to remove these people, not detain them. It's a matter of trying to find ways to better protect the public. These are aliens who should not have been in the country in the first place, he argues.
From Butterfield's perspective, however, indefinite detention is a direction she'd prefer the government not pursue. That's anathema to the Bill of Rights.
The proposal is, however, less stringent than what was initially proposed -- that suspects be deported without requiring evidence or presenting a trial. That recommendation has since been dropped.
In any event, Butterfield described the changes as a work in progress, and any changes would require congressional approval. If approved, the changes would apply to anyone with a temporary visa or anyone with a permanent resident status or green card.
"We have to have a chance for considered and thoughtful debate. ... We can't allow ourselves to trample on the Constitution in times of national crisis, which this surely is," she said.
To those who would argue civil liberties take a back seat to public safety, Butterfield said, "I think as a nation we have to balance a desire for safety with constitutional rights. The Constitution has been in effect 214 years. We've been through national and world crises before, and we've never suspended the building blocks of society. Now is not the time to start down that path."
She recalled the roundup of Japanese-Americans during World War II as a shameful part of American history and urged officials to not repeat that course of action.
While Butterfield worries about trampling the Bill of Rights, Stein argues that nonimmigrants or those here on temporary visas have no right to claim a violation of civil liberties. They are guests of the nation and if the government has revoked their visas, they have no right to claim their constitutional rights have been infringed, he said.
Furthermore, he said, the United States always will be at risk if it tries to project a global presence and at the same time does not enforce immigration laws. The sheer volume of immigrants speaks for itself. He cited Immigration and Naturalization Service estimates of 8 to 10 million illegal immigrants.
The country needs to better regulate and reduce immigration, Stein said. To say the government has been irresponsible is charitable; it's more a gross dereliction of duty.
He thinks the nation is getting bogged down on minor details and missing the big picture. Civil liberty groups have decided to pick a fight on indefinite detention when the real issue is national security, he said.
It's a new world where a handful of individuals have the potential to inflict mass murder, he added.
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