ACLU NEWS RELEASE * NEWS RELEASE * NEWS RELEASE * NEWS RELEASE Clinton Immigration Proposa

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Clinton Immigration Proposal Dangerous and Misguided;
Eliminates Judicial Review and Denies Legal Protections to Refugees

For IMMEDIATE RELEASE
July 23, 1993

     WASHINGTON -- Following is a statement from Lucas Guttentag, Director
of the Immigrants' Rights Project of the American Civil Liberties Union on
the immigration bill proposed today by the Clinton Administration.

     "The asylum exclusion bill proposed today by President Clinton would
allow the INS to operate behind a veil of secrecy and would deny
constitutional due process to legitimate seekers of political asylum. The
proposal is a badly misguided response by the President and some in
Congress that panders to America's most primitive fears about
immigration.

     "It is disturbing that this Administration -- led by a lawyer who
served as his state's Attorney General -- would propose to eliminate due
process and judicial review in the guise of combatting asylum abuse. The
only possible motivation for such a proposal must be the Administration's
fear that judicial oversight will expose discrimination, bias and
incompetence by the INS and that an independent judiciary will force the
INS to be fair and even-handed in determining refugee status for
immigrants.

     "Rather than addressing the backlogs, shortage of asylum officers,
insufficient resources and poor management that run rampant in the
Immigration and Naturalization Service, the Administration's legislation
would punish legitimate refugees seeking asylum in this country.

     "The Administration's proposed `reform' bill would throw the entire
asylum system into turmoil by creating new and untested legal standards,
establishing another bureaucracy within the Justice Department and denying
asylum applicants the most basic forms of legal protection guaranteed to
everyone in this country by the U.S. Constitution.

     "The Clinton bill would also try to strip the federal courts of their
historic jurisdiction to enforce individual rights and prohibit illegal
government conduct. It would create a system where uncontrolled
governmental abuse would go undetected because judicial oversight of the
process would be prohibited. Even if the INS flagrantly violated the
minimal procedures required by the bill, the courts would be impotent to
act."

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