Immigration

WORKING FOR COMPREHENSIVE IMMIGRATION REFORM

Immigration is a complicated issue, but we can no longer ignore the need for a comprehensive solution to this crisis.  We need orderly, legal avenues for immigration and pathways to earning permanent residency and citizenship.  At the same time, we need a better approach to determining who is coming in and out of our country by improving the security of our ports, our airlines, and our country.  It’s vital that we offer workers a fair wage to help all entry-level employees, strengthen worker protections, and invest in our education system to help bring all families into our communities.

As we address immigration reform we must look beyond ineffective enforcement-only policies to address the nearly twelve million undocumented immigrants already in the country.  While a strong relationship between federal immigration enforcement officials and members of our local community is essential to enforcing our immigration laws, both sides must make every effort to maintain a level of trust.  Some immigration raids in our neighborhoods conducted by the United States Immigrations and Customs Enforcement Agency (ICE) have had the opposite effect.  There are better ways to enforce our immigration laws than through such raids, which do little more than cause widespread panic in our community, particularly among children.

As Chair of House Subcommittee on Workforce Protections, I held a hearing on the impact ICE raids had families and children and asked ICE to explain how it is protecting children during these raids.  Subsequently, I introduced H.R. 2607, the Humane Enforcement and Legal Protections (HELP) for Separated Children Act, a bill that would require ICE to adhere to basic, humanitarian procedures in all immigration enforcement actions, regardless of the size of the operation or the location.  The bill also would strengthen the ability of state child welfare agencies to protect separated children who were in the child welfare system and whose caregivers were removed from the country.  Additionally, the bill would ensure that detained parents have regular phone calls and visits with their children, access to legal service providers regarding child custody issues, and arrange for their child to travel back with them to their country of origin.

It’s important to realize that none of this would be happening if we had a sound and meaningful immigration policy.  Immigration continues to be an asset to this country and to California, and I will to fight to develop a policy that is both fair and humane, and offers a sensible solution to illegal immigration.

(Updated April 2012)