HOUSE IMMIGRATION SUBCOMMITTEE HEARINGS ON SECRET EVIDENCE REPEAL ACT

The Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 created many new rules of criminal procedure.  Though the name of the law does not suggest it, some of the rules focus on the immigration consequences of criminal activity.  Relief from deportation is denied to many immigrants who have been convicted of certain crimes.  Some immigrants have felt the power of the law even though they have not been convicted of any crime or even found to have violated immigration rules.  The AEDPA created Alien Removal Terrorist Courts in which secret evidence, evidence that the government does not have to reveal, is used to detain and deport foreign nationals without ever allowing the person to see the evidence against them.

The use of secret evidence has been challenged many times in federal court and most federal judges who have heard such cases have found the evidence insufficient as a basis for deportation.  A bill was introduced in Congress last year that would change the ways in which such evidence could be used.  The proposed legislation, H.R. 2121, the Secret Evidence Repeal Act, was the subject of a House Immigration Subcommittee hearing this past week.

The bill would not prevent the use of “secret” evidence, but it would require the government to make the evidence available to the other side in immigration proceedings.  If the government feels that the evidence should not be made public for security reasons, it may keep it secret. But is cannot not use it in immigration proceedings. 

The subcommittee has not voted the bill on, but when there are further developments, we will pass them along to our readers.