A growing chorus of criticism is being levied at Congress for failing to pass legislation that would bring stability to Dreamers but moving swiftly to act on legislation that would make it easier to kick out immigrants suspected of illegal gang activity.
The latest salvo took place Wednesday, when Vanita Gupta, president and CEO of The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, fired off a letter to Congress urging members to oppose the “Criminal Alien Gang Member Removal Act.”
“Only a week after the elimination of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, we are deeply disappointed that Congress’s first legislative response is to further erode due process protections for immigrants and put them at an even greater risk of deportation,” Gupta said in the letter.
Among other things, Gupta criticizes the Criminal Alien Gang Removal Act — technically known as H.R. 3697 — for how it “would subject people who have never committed a crime to deportation” and create a new definition of a criminal gang that is “unworkably vague.”
“It shifts the burden to individuals to prove they did not know they were affiliated with a gang that committed qualifying offenses, even though proving such a negative is often impossible,” Gupta argues.
The text of the law defines a “criminal gang” as “an ongoing group, club, organization, or association of 5 or more persons” that has as one of its primary purposes the commission of felony drug offenses, crimes of violence, human trafficking, and other offenses.
Gupta stated further that the act would “disproportionately harm younger immigrants — particularly unaccompanied minors, some of whom flee their home countries to escape gang violence, forced drug trafficking, and sexual violence, and who are at high risk of being coerced to participate in criminal activity.”
