Insanely Ignorant Immigration Initiative Incenses Immigrants

For the past few weekends there have been huge street protests in major U.S. cities (Chicago, Phoenix, San Jose, etc) to call attention to H.R. 4337.
In Los Angeles, a crowd estimated at over 500, 000 strong marched yesterday on City Hall to call attention to the contributions of immigrants to this country (and city, county and state). The bill, authored by U.S. Rep. James Sensebrenner (R-WI), passed the U.S. House of Representatives on December 22, 2005 by a vote of 239-182.The bill, titled "The Border Protection, Antiterrorism, and Illegal Immigration Control Act of 2005" would make radical changes to current immigration law:

• Makes the status of being undocumented an aggravated felony
• Authorizes the building of a 800-mile fence along the USA-Mexico border
• Mandates that within two years of enactment every employer in the United States must verify the legal employment status of every (future and current) employee
• Eliminates judicial review of visa revocation
• Increases penalties and sets mandatory minimum sentences for immigrants who fail to respond to deportation (now renamed "removal") orders
• Increases the number of penalties for which a legal immgrant (documented resident alien) can be deported (i.e. three drunk driving arrest, social security or identity fraud, etc)
• and, many, many more!

The provision which raised the ire and provoked explicit statements of noncompliance from the Roman Catholic U.S. Conference of Bishops was the idea that anyone found assisting an immigrant would also be committing a felony and subject to arrest. It's not clear to me if some of the more explicitly racist provisions like prohibiting pregnant women from travelling to the United States to give birth and modifying the legal doctrine of jus soli (birthright citizenship) to children who are born in the United States who have parents who are either already citizens or permanent residents ae still in the bill.

georgia10 at dailykos.com has done an excellent job of highlighting this issue. Even Senator Hillary Clinton has called the legislation "mean-spirited." President Bush called for a comprehensive approach to immigration reform in his weekly radio address to the Nation.

MadProfresssah and the nearly one million people who have rallied in support of immigrants in the past few weeks are watching the immigration debate very closely. We shall see...