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Dear AALDEF friends and supporters,

As you may know, the Senate is poised to pass immigration legislation that would radically alter our immigration system and deplete human rights standards in the process.

The content of the lead Senate bill, Hagel-Martinez (S. 2611), is inconsistent with AALDEF’s principles for fair and just immigration reform. Its basic individual provisions, and the bill as a whole, would strip or substantially scale back the legal rights of all immigrants and criminalize many, documented or undocumented, in order to make it palatable for passage.

Right now, Senators are locked in fierce debate over these basic rights, and urgently need to hear from YOU. Please take just one minute to call the Capitol Switchboard at (202) 224-3121 and register your opinion on the following immigrants’ rights principles:

• “I am calling to OPPOSE the hierarchical three-tiered legalization plan under Hagel-Martinez that will leave more than half of undocumented immigrants ineligible to adjust their status. The Senator should SUPPORT ONLY a bill that offers all immigrants a fair opportunity to adjust their status.”
• “I support a bill that PROVIDES worker protections by repealing employer sanctions, which ironically expands the underground workforce and drives down wages and working conditions for all. The Hagel-Martinez bill enhances employer sanctions.”
• I am also calling to urge the Senator to OPPOSE the U.S.-Mexico fence expansion and END the inhumane and wasteful practices used to detain immigrants without adequate due process. Instead, the Senator should SUPPORT the Brownback-Lieberman Amendment #4020, which regards immigration detention as ‘civil’ and ‘nonpunitive in nature’ and safeguards due process rights of asylum seekers and others in detention.”

Since an anti-immigrant “reform” bill has already passed the House, any final compromise with the current Senate bill would be enforcement-tilted, and unacceptable to our community. Your calls do matter: Senators yesterday narrowly defeated an amendment that would have denied Social Security benefits to any immigrants who adjust their status who paid into Social Security while undocumented. The vote was 50-49.

Thank you,

AALDEF