Bill's critics fear longer detentions for migrants

The bipartisan Senate immigration bill would drastically expand the ability to deport and detain certain immigrants in little-noticed provisions that could increase racial profiling, Los Angeles immigrant rights advocates said Thursday.

In coordinated news conferences in five cities nationwide, immigrant rights advocates said the bill would allow the indefinite detention of some immigrants, limit judicial review of legalization cases and expand detention facilities.

"These egregious provisions fly in the face of due process and constitutional law," said Stacy Tolchin, a Los Angeles immigration lawyer with the National Lawyers Guild.

The news conferences were the latest effort to raise concerns over legislation proposed last month by Sens. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) and Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.). The bill has drawn mixed reviews from the right and left over provisions to offer immigrants a path to citizenship, beef up border security, expand a temporary-worker program and limit family visas in favor of those with advanced skills, education and fluent English.

A Kennedy aide said some of the criticism was misplaced, directed at provisions that had been eliminated in the last few weeks. One of these is a provision that would have allowed the deportation of potentially thousands of legal immigrants who may be "associated" with gang members.

Immigrant rights advocates criticized the provision Thursday as "McCarthyesque" for penalizing people for their associations, not individual wrongdoing. But the Kennedy aide said the provision had been eliminated, and the bill allowed only the deportation of those who knowingly participate in criminal gang activity.

Some Republicans said the bill's detention and deportation procedures did not go far enough in protecting public safety and national security. Indefinite detention of dangerous immigrants is necessary for public safety, and more detention facilities are urgently needed for an estimated 600,000 fugitive migrants flouting deportation orders, according to Brian Walsh, spokesman for Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas).

"In Sen. Cornyn's view, [the provisions] are about keeping Americans safe, not about the rights of people who entered the country illegally in the first place," said Walsh, adding that the senator would not endorse the bill until further "loopholes" were closed.