Washington, DC – Congressman Joe Baca (D-Rialto) appeared today with other leaders of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus and the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus to denounce a Republican anti-immigrant proposal designed to score political points.

Congressman Baca released the following statement to announce his support for realistic, meaningful and comprehensive immigration reform legislation and to highlight the many flaws and shortcomings in H.R. 4437, a controversial bill that is expected to come up for a vote in the U.S. House of Representatives tomorrow.

Our nation needs secure borders to keep out terrorists and criminals, but we cannot solve immigration problems solely through enforcement, and we should not treat all immigrants as felons.

This year Members of Congress, President Bush, business organizations and the advocacy community have all expressed the need for comprehensive reform of our immigration laws.

Unfortunately, this bill, H.R. 4437, the Border and Immigration Enforcement Act., does not approach this important issue in a comprehensive manner.

America has spent more and more money and hired more and more border patrol agents only to see immigration increase dramatically.

Enforcement-only approaches like H.R. 4437 have failed and will fail.  Stricter enforcement has merely encouraged immigrants to cross the border in more remote and more dangerous areas where they are more difficult to catch and more likely to die.

This bill will not protect our nation.  It is simply an attempt to pass anti-immigrant legislation under the mask of reform.  Instead, we need realistic and compassionate reform.

Politicians and talk radio can make outrageous statements about immigrants, but the truth is that Americans rely on immigrant labor to maintain our economy and quality of life.

Immigrants have made the communities in the Inland Empire stronger and better.  And across the country – cities, towns and businesses have all benefited from the contributions of immigrants.

This legislation has a face: It’s the face of a nanny, a gardener, the cook at your favorite restaurant, the cleaning crew at your workplace.

We need legislation that provides immigrants like these hardworking people of good character with a path towards citizenship.

I join with my colleagues in the Congressional Hispanic Caucus in supporting comprehensive immigration reform.  America needs a border security PLUS bill, one that protects our borders, respects American values by reuniting families, and provides earned legalization for immigrants who have proven to be law abiding members of society. 

H.R. 4437 deals with border security alone, ignores the reality of our current immigration challenge and jeopardizes the welfare and security of this country. 

This legislation contains many provisions that are merely an assault on hard working immigrants and their families and provide no meaningful reform for our broken immigration system.

The bill makes being in the United States without “papers” a felony.  This has the effect of making 11 million undocumented immigrants felons.  Is that what America wants – to arrest and lock up 11 million immigrants, most of them hard-working people who contribute so much to our economy and our communities? 

How would Republicans propose going about this?  Are they planning to build detention camps with tent cities for 11 million people to live until they can be deported?

And who is going to identify and round up the immigrants?  This bill would allow state and local police to enforce federal criminal laws.  But police departments do not want to become immigration enforcers because it distracts them from doing their primary job – to fight crime and protect us from the real threats against our communities.

Also police understand that if immigrants do not feel safe calling the police, they will remain silent when they witness a crime or are victims of crime.  And that hinders the police and makes our neighborhoods more dangerous.

Furthermore, this bill would also permit states and localities to use funds from homeland security grant programs for immigration enforcement activities.  Our first responders need every dime of homeland security funds they receive to prevent and respond to emergencies.  This provision raids their coffers to encourage state and local police to be immigration agents.

This bill also contains a provision to extend mandatory detention to all non-citizens detained at a port of entry or along the border even if they pose no flight risk or danger.  This would result in serious injustices and the wasteful use of resources.

This bill also severely restricts opportunities for deserving long term immigrants to pursue citizenship.  It bars countless refugees and asylum seekers from permanent residency and creates new and unprecedented grounds for making immigrants inadmissible or subject to deportation.

H.R. 4437 also authorizes the expansion of expedited removal which could lead to racial profiling by low level immigration officers.  I am especially concerned that Latinos and other American citizens who look “different” than the stereotypical image of an American will be subject to racial profiling.

This legislation goes even further by branding all undocumented immigrants – even children – as felons!  Imagine that.  Over 1.6 million undocumented children would be affected.  A child whose parents decided to come to our country will be a felon.  Does that mean immigrant children will be kicked out of school?  Will teachers and principals be required to turn in their students or to act as immigration agents themselves? 

This bill outrageously tramples on the U.S. Constitution by changing the law and tradition of granting citizenship to all children born within our borders.  Some mean-spirited people want to deny these children their birthright!

We must reject measures that punish children and treat them as criminals and undesirables.

I support immigration policies that will keep America safe, strong, democratic and fair:  We should work to reunite families, meet the labor needs of America’s economy, secure economic stability for our neighbors to the south, and honor the values of the United States of America as a nation of immigrants.