Speech #1090156024

Mr. President. this amendment is designed to end a decadesold. obsolete Federal court injunction designed to impede the Department of Homeland Securitys use of expedited removal and enforcement of our immigration laws. In 1988. a Federal court in Los Angeles issued a permanent. nationwide Injunction that requires immigration authorities to afford detained Salvadorans a host of substantive and proposal rightsrights afforded to literally no other immigrant group. Largely as a result of this 1988 Orantes injunction. Salvadorans have now become the single largest component of what is known as OTMs or "other than Mexican" immigrants. Both the border tunnel amendment that Senator FEINSTEIN has offered and my immigration injunction seconddegree amendment deal with illegal immigration and are designed to deal with criminal activity. They go together well because they both close border vulnerabilities that are being exploited by gangs and smugglers. The injunction amendment passed as an amendment in committee. and there has been little opposition. It is currently in the compromise bill endorsed by a majority of Senate Democrats. The amendment requires courts to narrowly tailor injunctive relief orders against the Government in immigration cases and to take into account national security. border security. public safety. and immigration enforcement concerns. Decadesold. obsolete Federal court injunctions continue to impede the Department of Homeland Securitys efforts to enforce our immigration laws. For example. if you look at June of 2005 through February of 2006. you can see why this specific injunction. which impedes the use of expedited removal when it comes to immigrants from El Salvador. is such a problem and why this amendment is necessary. For example. in June of 2005 there were some 4.181 Brazilians subject to apprehension. At the same time. there were roughly the same number of El Salvadorans: 4.011. But because of the improvements in expedited removal and immigration law enforcement inso far as it relates to Braziliansnot subject to the Orantes injunction that impedes the use of this important procedurewe saw the number of Brazilians drop from 4.181 in June of 2005 to 72 in February of 2006. During the same time period. because of the impediment created by the Orantes injunction. which prohibited the use of expedited removal when it came to Salvadorans who illegally immigrated into the United States. we