SENATOR KENNEDY INTRODUCES IMMIGRATION FAIRNESS BILL
This
week Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-MA), who is expected to become the Chair of the
Senate Immigration Subcommittee with this week’s shift in the balance of
power, introduced a bill that would make numerous significant reforms in the
current immigration system. Called
the Immigrant Fairness Restoration Act of 2001, the bill would restore many of
the due process protections that were eliminated five years ago in the
Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act and the Illegal Immigration Reform
and Immigrant Responsibility Act.
Clearly aware of the widespread accusations that the 1996 laws went too far,
Kennedy’s bill would restore much of the pre-1996 immigration law, especially
as relating to deportation. Perhaps
most importantly, it would allow a person in deportation proceedings because of
a criminal conviction to apply for whatever relief was available at the time the
offense was committed. It would
also eliminate the retroactive application of the expanded definition of
aggravated felony, and would also eliminate the retroactive application of
expanded ground of deportation.
It would specify that in determining whether a criminal offense is a crime of
moral turpitude or an aggravated felony, the actual length of the sentence
served, not the maximum possible sentence, is the determining factor.
It also restores the five-year prison term for most offenses to be
considered aggravated felonies, rather than the one-year term that was created
in 1996.
The bill would expand the class of people eligible for a waiver of deportation
from those convicted only of simple marijuana possession to those convicted of
any drug offense for which they were sentenced to less than one year in prison.
It would expand other waiver of deportation and would eliminate many of
the restrictions on judicial review of deportation orders.
Many of the mandatory detention provisions would be removed, and the bill makes
clear that noncitizens have the ability to challenge their detention by a
petition for a writ of habeas corpus.
INS
RECEIVES MORE APPLICATIONS THAN EXPECTED FROM SALVADORANS FOLLOWING EARTHQUAKES
SISKIND'S IMMIGRATION BULLETIN