Speech #1040272526

President. I also have reservations concerning the bills provisions on the deportability of criminal aliens. If these provisions are adopted. they will significantly weaken many of the important reforms this Congress adopted last session in the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act to facilitate deportation of criminal aliens. As I have made clear throughout consideration of the immigration bill. I draw a sharp distinction between immigrants who come to this country to make better lives for themselves and those who come to break our laws and prey upon our citizens. I have made no secret of my strong concerns about the conference reports repeal of important provision this Congress enacted into law in the Antiterrorism Act last spring. Along with my colleague Senator DAMATO. I have sent a letter to the immigration conferees outlining these concerns. which I would like briefly to mention here. First the draft conference report unconditionally restores immigration judges ability to grant socalled hardship or section 212(c) waivers to large categories of criminals who have committed serious felonies. When Congress enacted section 212(c) in 1952 as part of the Immigration and Nationality Act. it made clear that it was to apply only to those cases where extenuating circumstances clearly require such action. Unfortunately. unelected and irresponsible immigration judges have completely and permanently ended deportation proceedings against thousands of convicted felons under this provision. The Antiterrorism Act corrected this outrage by barring individuals from using section 212(c) if they had been convicted of aggravated felonies. firearms. and narcotics crimes. or repeated serious offenses. But now the conference report would restore these waivers for all criminal aliens other than aggravated felons. Repeat offenders. illegal firearms. and narcotics dealers and. most shocking of all. terrorists. all would now be able to have deportation proceedings against themselves terminated. And. even in those cases when a waiver is not granted. the request itself will delay the deportation process and make it harder to detain criminal aliens pending deportation. That means that more criminal aliens will be released and will never be found again to be deported. Why has this pernicious invitation to immigration judges to abuse their power been restored? I have heard no explanation. Yet. if it is because my colleagues now believe that these judges can be trusted not to abuse their discretion recent experience shows otherwise. Even now. with section 212(c) eliminated by the Antiterrorism Act. some imnigration judges are granting the relief for criminal aliens who are in exclusion proceedings. This plainly defies the clear meaning of the statute. The Antiterrorism Act applies to aliens who are deportable for having committed certain crimes. It contains no reference to any proceedings in which the immigrant might be engaged. be they exclusion or deportation proceedings. The choice of proceedings is irrelevant. It is the commission of proscribed felonies on American soil that dictates the criminal aliens removal. Fortunately. by establishing a unified system for removing aliens who do not comply with our laws. the conference report eliminates the availability of this particular misconstruction. But its restoration to the same immigration judges who devised this misconstruction of the authority to grant these waivers to large classes of criminals is simply incomprehensible. Removal of these felons will be made even more difficult under the conference report because the bill significantly weakens the Antiterrorism Acts requirements relating to the detention of criminal aliens. Under that act the Attorney General was required to detain all criminal aliens who have committed certain serious crimes. pending deportation. The conference report would allow the Attorney General to release large categories of these individuals. on certifying that insufficient space exists to detain them. for 2 full years. Again. the question is why?