Michael Billeaux and Chris Lockamy contributed to this article. 

Between March 10 and May 1, more than five million people took to the streets to demand fair treatment for immigrant laborers.  United in their desire to achieve basic legal rights for so-called ‘illegals’, their efforts make up the largest civil rights movement in the United States since the 1960s.

Whereas these efforts have united Latinos, public opinion polls reveal that the country as a whole remains divided as to how it should cope with the 12 million unauthorized migrants currently living in the United States. In Congress, proposals to handle the “immigration problem” have ranged from legalized exploitation to mass deportation of migrant laborers, with the former usually offered as a “compromise” position – a compromise between corporations and right-wing extremists, that is. Mass legalizations, on the other hand, are simply out of the question. With a little help from media giants, the whole affair is used to expand federal power to more frightening levels than it currently enjoys, as well as help Republicans recover their fan base.

Where did the uproar come from? What are the proposals in Congress, and what do they represent? What does the public think, and why? These are heady questions, already complicated by anti-immigrant hysteria. To treat them seriously requires freeing people from propaganda and widely held myths.

HR 4437: The Pogrom Begins 

Latino communities organized the May 1 demonstrations primarily in response to the passage of the Border Protection, Antiterrorism, and Illegal Immigration Reform Act of 2005 (HR 4437), proposed by James Sensenbrenner (R-WI) and passed by the Republican-controlled house on Dec. 16, 2005.  Sensenbrenner also introduced the PATRIOT Act, as well as authored the Real ID Act – both landmark examples of legislation that assault privacy and basic civil liberties. Like both of these bills, HR 4437 has more to do with controlling people than it does with homeland security. 

Fueled by the racist belief that Latino immigration results in a “browning of America” that threatens civilization itself, this proposed new law calls for increased border security and constructing 700 miles of wall along the U.S.-Mexico border. More importantly, it would also make it a felony for any undocumented immigrant to live in the United States or for any person to help such immigrants, carrying draconian penalties for offenders.

Logistically, attempting to deport 12 million people is impractical, to say the least, and 700 miles of wall would span only about one-third of the U.S.-Mexico border. But putting practicality aside, there are several other problems with HR 4437 and what it represents.

Making it a felony—rather than a misdemeanor—to enter the country illegally is a shameful debasement of hard working people and others trying to unite with their families. Immigration has historically been a civil issue, not a criminal one, and equating immigrants with criminals and terrorists is xenophobic lunacy. The bill also attempts to greatly expand the definition of “alien smuggling” so that church groups, activists, social and health care workers, and even family members who assist undocumented immigrants would be treated as smugglers. This is reminiscent of the 1851 Fugitive Slave Act, which made it a felony to aid or abet a fugitive slave in an attempt to crush the abolitionist movement. Moreover, even documented immigrants can potentially become felons under the dictates of HR 4437, since minor documentation errors (a change of address, for instance) can quickly result in an illegal status.

If enacted, these changes to currently existing immigration laws would tear many families apart, since undocumented members of mixed-status families would be incapable of attaining legal immigration status. A coalition of Republican lawmakers has even called for a mean-spirited provision that would deny citizenship to children of undocumented workers that were born in the United States. Furthermore, because HR 4437 increases mandatory detention, expedited removal, and criminal penalties for civil immigration violations for all aliens, undocumented immigrant children would be automatically subject to imprisonment without the right to see an immigration judge.

HR 4437 does not make exceptions for asylum seekers, either. This is in stark violation of international law, in particular Article 31 of the Refugee Convention, which prohibits penalizing asylum seekers for the irregular ways they enter countries of refuge. (Not that this is very surprising, of course. The United States has routinely detained undocumented children and asylum seekers since 1996, often in high security prisons alongside convicted or suspected criminals, and for prolonged periods of time.) Anti-terrorism measures in the United States and several countries have dramatically eroded “core refugee protection standards,” as Human Rights Watch predicted would occur shortly after 9/11.  In 2004, for instance, the United States illegally forced 867 Haitian asylum seekers to return to their country, despite that “Conditions in Haiti [were] too dangerous to permit the safe return of Haitians to their country.”  Because of these anti-terrorism measures, HR 4437 also “has the potential to deny individuals who face death, torture or abuse in their home countries from obtaining relief under withholding of removal,” in the words of the House members who wrote the dissenting views to accompany HR 4437.

These and some of the bill’s other fierce provisions are motivated by a commitment to transfer powers from municipal and state agencies to the federal government, in this case the Department of Homeland Security and the Social Security Administration. The Bush administration began this transfer in 2003, when it dissolved the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) and absorbed it into the Homeland Security Department, along with FEMA and dozens of other federal agencies created to help citizens and residents. HR 4437 simply continues the process. By turning over all captured immigrants to federal custody, by authorizing the secretary of Homeland Security to refuse visas and deport immigrants at whim, and by bolstering Border Patrol and surveillance capabilities to establish operational control of U.S. borders, HR 4437 invests unwarranted power in the federal government. By deputizing police and sheriffs in border towns to enforce immigration laws, it provides employers with a tool for removing immigrant workers who try to enforce their rights. And by providing this militaristic framework in which to handle immigration, HR 4437 seriously erodes the prospects for a fair immigration policy.

For these reasons and others (see sidebar), unions, churches, and immigrant rights groups rightly denounced HR 4437 and its irresponsible, inhuman implications. As of this writing, the bill has yet to be reconciled with any bill from the Senate, which is not likely to pass anything as terrible as an unmodified version of HR 4437. Nevertheless, HR 4437 represents the basic position on immigration of the House Republicans, as well as inspires many racists and xenophobes to new highs. Because of this, the lessons of HR 4437 are still valuable ones, worth bearing in mind as the struggle continues.