Forwarded from the ICIRR.
ILLINOIS COALITION FOR IMMIGRANT AND REFUGEE RIGHTS
55 E. Jackson, Suite 2075 · Chicago, IL 60604 · 312.332.7360 voice · 312.332.7044 fax · www.icirr.org
Stop Scapegoating Immigrants
Oppose HB 5756 (Ramey)
HB 5756 would require the Illinois Department of Corrections and the Illinois Department of Juvenile Justice to report to US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) anyone in the department’s custody that the department suspects of being in the US without legal status.
Why this bill is a bad idea :
HB 5756 is unnecessary. IDOC already arranges with ICE to screen inmates when they arrive in IDOC custody. IDOC personnel review documents and use other information to identify inmates who are noncitizens (including permanent residents, refugees and others who are lawfully here). ICE then initiates deportation proceedings against these noncitizens while they are still serving their criminal sentences. After they complete their sentences, these noncitizens are sent directly to ICE custody for removal. IDOC and ICE are already working to focus on real criminals, and already go much farther than HB 5756.
HB 5756 will lead to racial profiling. Which inmates will be "suspected" of being in the US without legal status? It will be too easy for prison authorities to suspect anyone who looks or sounds foreign, including any inmates with Spanish-sounding or Arab-sounding surnames.
The bill indiscriminately tries to paint all immigrants as criminals. Incarceration rates among the foreign-born are actually much lower than those among natives. Furthermore, when immigrants move into communities, crime rates actually go down. In Carpentersville, the crime rate dropped by half since the mid-1990s, at the same time Latino immigrants were moving there.
This bill was essentially created and backed by racist hate groups. Our state should not stoop to the level of these groups.
Illinois has already shown the right way to welcome immigrants by encouraging citizenship, offering health care and education for immigrant children, and moving forward on immigrant integration. We are well beyond painting immigrants as criminals.
We need to focus on real solutions to our immigration problem. Immigration is a federal issue, and must be once and for all resolved through federal legislation. This is no time for false fixes on the state level.
Rep. Ramey has claimed on talk radio that his bill would require local police to ask criminal suspects about immigration status. The bill in fact covers only IDOC and the Department of Juvenile Justice, and does not reach local police at all. Has Ramey read his own bill?
PLEASE CALL STATE REP. LISA DUGAN NOW AT 217-782-5981 . She is the chair of the House Homeland Security Committee, which will vote on HB 5756 very soon. Tell her, “I urge a NO vote on HB 5756, an un-necessary and hateful bill.”
