CAMBIO: Changes to Ensure Due Process and Accountability at Department of Homeland Security Must Not Be Delayed

Administrative Reforms Should Not Undermine Legislative Process

WASHINGTON — President Obama’s announcement to suspend his review of immigration enforcement policies delays critical reforms needed to guarantee the most basic due process protections and accountability mechanisms.

The promise of legislative reform should not be impacted or undermined by the President’s responsibility to ensure the Department of Homeland Security’s policies and practices uphold Constitutional protections.

Member organizations of the Campaign for an Accountable Moral and Balanced Immigration Overhaul (CAMBIO) released the following statements in response to the President’s announcement:

Marielena Hincapié, executive director, National Immigration Law Center

“Our current detention and deportation system flies in the face of our values for due process and fairness under the law, all while separating families at a record breaking pace. President Obama and DHS leadership have failed to restore accountability to this department for nearly six years, and any delay – whether for political or policy purposes – is simply unacceptable.

“The only permanent solution to fix our immigration system lies within the halls of Congress. However, communities along the border and in the interior should not continue to suffer civil rights abuses while Congress acts. The cost – to our families, to our economy, and to our society – is simply too high. The time for reform, from both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue, is now.”

Christian Ramirez, director, Southern Border Communities Coalition

The President must continue to address the much needed policy reforms within the Department of Homeland Security. There are 15 million U.S. citizens living under the boots of Customs and Border Protection, an agency with a well-documented pattern and practice of abuse and violence.

“Both U.S. and Mexican citizens are dying at the hands of border patrol agents gone rogue. We look to the President for leadership now to ensure that there isn’t one more senseless, violent death. We don’t need to wait for legislation to protect the lives of border communities and guarantee accountability.

“The president must and can ensure that the nation’s largest law enforcement agency is held to the highest standards of professionalism and accountable for its actions.

The President must instruct CBP to immediately release both the findings and recommendations that address the agency’s pattern of abuse, as well as the use-of-force policies that have been withheld from the public for too long.”

Laura W. Murphy, director of the ACLU Washington Legislative Office

“The President must stop allowing DHS to terrorize immigrant communities in the name of being tough on immigration. Each day reform is delayed, thousands are unjustly detained, deported and torn apart from their families. DHS’ actions have created a humanitarian crisis and a deportation system that can only be described as inhumane.”

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