24 May, 2013
160+ U.S. Organizations Seek Immigration Bill Changes to End Racial Profiling
Washington DC., (23 May 2013) – A broad coalition of 160+ U.S. national, state and local organizations sent a letter today to all 100 members of the U.S. Senate to advocate for an effective and inclusive prohibition on profiling and discrimination in the immigration bill.
The letter contends that the current version of the immigration bill fails to include a prohibition on profiling based on national origin or religion, and creates extremely broad exceptions for national and border security, which may enable discrimination against millions of Americans.
The signatories of the letter include The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights, the Union for Reform Judaism, the Asian American Justice Center, the Mexican American Legal Defense Fund, SAALT, the Legal Aid Society Employment Law Center, the Sikh Coalition, the United Methodist Church, and the National Network for Arab American Communities.
The coalition urges the Senate to fix the profiling language in the immigration bill – which heads to the Senate floor after approval this week by the Senate Judiciary Committee – by adding a prohibition on profiling based on religion and national origin, and to eliminate overly broad exceptions for border and national security.
It urges the Senate to ensure that those who are, or perceived to be, Muslim, Arab, Middle Eastern, or South Asian American, and are returning home from international travel would not continue to be targeted by CBP agents for intrusive questioning about their religious practices and beliefs, based not on wrongdoing, but simply based on their faith.
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