Immigration Policy: Guilt by Immigration Status - New Report

Guilty by Immigration Status new report, September 2009," reveals that immigration policing is causing a disturbing pattern of abuses and rights violations – a pattern that has severely and detrimentally affected the livelihood and safety of entire families, workers and communities across the U.S. In particular, the report describes how the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), along with other police, public officials and agencies, routinely trumped the civil rights and constitutional protections of a person in order to question, detain and/or jail them solely
based on their actual or perceived immigration status."

"The pattern of DHS practices and policies illustrated in the report gives evidence to a dramatic expansion and consolidation of an “immigration control regime,” under which the human rights of immigrants, including legal permanent residents and U.S. citizens, are routinely violated at the U.S.-Mexico border and in the U.S. interior. Unless the components of this regime are halted and dismantled, the long-held promise of immigration reform – the lifting of millions of immigrant workers and their families out of a life of fear and exploitation – will be severely undermined. "