Democrats denounce Rep. Lamar Smith's (R-TX) latest immigration legislation.

[pampango]

http://www.gutierrez.house.gov/index.php?catid=50:2011-press-releases&id=691:democrats-denounce-rep-smiths-anti-obama-immigration-bill&option=com_content&view=article

Pro-immigrant Democratic Members of Congress gathered for a press conference today to denounce a new bill filed by the Chairman of the Judiciary Committee, Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX), that would restrict the immigration enforcement powers of President Obama for the remainder of his term. It would prevent the President from prioritizing criminals, terrorists, and other threats for deportation over non-criminal immigrants with deep roots in U.S. society.

Rep. Luis V. Gutierrez (IL) was joined by ten other Democrats -- Reps. Xavier Becerra (CA), Howard Berman (CA), Judy Chu (CA), Yvette Clarke (NY), Lloyd Doggett (TX), Sheila Jackson Lee (TX), Barbara Lee (CA), Zoe Lofgren (CA), Mike Quigley (IL), and Maxine Waters (CA) -- who said they would call on the House Democratic Caucus to stand with them in opposing Rep. Smith's bill.

Known as the HALT Act ("Hinder the Administration's Legalization Temptation" Act), the bill would suspend until January 21, 2013 the powers of this president to deprioritize certain deportations in order to prioritize the removal of convicted, serious criminals and other threats.

The powers the HALT Act would restrict are the same prosecutorial powers that Rep. Smith and others have called on previous presidents to use to prevent the deportation of law-abiding immigrants. Congressman Gutierrez used a red pen to highlight sections of a 1999 letter signed by Rep. Smith, which Rep. Gutierrez had blown up on a poster board and which was distributed at the press conference. The New York Times, in an editorial Wednesday, said Rep. Smith's changed position on the use of prosecutorial discretion was "Hard to explain…although hypocrisy and rank opportunism seem likely."

Rep. Lamar Smith’s Latest Anti-Immigrant Bill: “Hypocrisy and Rank Opportunism”

http://americasvoiceonline.org/blog/entry/lamar_smith_hypocrite/

Smith's bill also terminates the Temporary Protected Status program, which protects nationals of countries recovering from natural or man-made disaster, and forces the deportation of U.S. citizens’ spouses who can currently apply for an “extreme hardship” exception.

Incredibly, Smith’s limits on executive power extend only to the current Administration—they expire after the next presidential inauguration.

Smith’s motivations couldn’t be any more transparent. The HALT Act is a blatant attempt to intimidate the Obama Administration before the 2012 elections. The Administration should instead embrace its powers and apply immigration laws in a humane and sensible way, and continue to press Congress to do its job and reform the broken immigration system.

In an editorial earlier this week, the New York Times sums up the sheer ridiculousness of Smith’s proposal:

President Obama’s top immigration enforcer, John Morton, recently instructed his officials to take mitigating factors into account, like an immigrant’s family ties in the United States and education status, when deciding which deportation cases to pursue. It was not a major breakthrough, but it was sensible and humane, which is why it drew the ire of Representative Lamar Smith…

The idea behind the discretion is that immigration officials cannot go after everybody, so it makes sense to focus resources on people worth worrying about, like drug dealers, gang members and violent criminals. This is standard practice everywhere in law enforcement.

Without this authority, the administration would be barred from deferring the removal of people who it decides should be low priorities on the deportation list. They could be stable members of their communities, with citizens in their families; or students brought here as children by their parents. They could be temporarily stuck here because their home countries were devastated by natural disasters.