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CLEAR Act Action Alert

World Relief Letter to Representative Sensenbrenner Opposing the Clear Act of 2003 (12/17/03)

LCHR Letter to Senate Opposing the Homeland Security Enhancement Act of 2003 (11/12/03)

LCHR Letter to House of Representatives Opposing the CLEAR Act of 2003 (10/01/03)

Assessing the New Normal
Chapter Three:
Immigrants, Refugees,
and Minorities

U.S. Considers Expanding
FBI Database

Crime Database Misused for Civil Issues, Suit Says

CLEAR Act Talking Points
By National Immigration Forum (08/03)

Detention Watch Network CLEAR Act Sign-On (10/01/03)

Sign-on Letter by National and Local Domestic Violence Organizations in Opposition to the CLEAR Act (9/30/03)

Boston Police Department Letter of Opposition to the CLEAR Act (9/30/03)

LCHR U.S. Law and Security Work from 9/01 to 12/02

US Law & Security

Our New Federalism

Broad Based Concern About Local Law Enforcement
of Federal Immigration Laws

Representative Charles Norwood (R-GA) recently introduced the Clear Law Enforcement for Criminal Alien Removal (CLEAR) Act, (H.R. 2671). In the Senate, Senator Jeff Sessions (R-AL) introduced similar legislation on November 20, 2024 entitled the Homeland Security Enhancement Act of 2003. If enacted, these bills would authorize the federal government to conscript the help of state and local police to enforce federal immigration laws. They would also require the entry of civil immigration information into the National Crime Information Center (NCIC), a computer crime database, and would criminalize minor immigration violations, authorizing the detention of individuals who have committed only minor violations. The NCIC is a database containing millions of criminal records entered by the FBI designed to be accessible to federal, state and local authorities nationwide. The CLEAR Act would expand the kind of data entered into NCIC to include civil infractions, such as minor immigration violations.

Local law enforcement officials from across the country -- including the California Police Chiefs Association, the Federal Hispanic Law Enforcement Officers Association (FHLEOA), Chief Charles H. Ramsey of the Metropolitan Washington Police Department and the chief of police in Arlington, Texas,-- have publicly voiced their opposition to the federal government’s efforts to conscript local police officers in the enforcement of federal immigration law. See LCHR's report Assessing the New Normal: Liberty and Security in the Post-September 11 United States and the National Immigration Forum's CLEAR Act materials. They and many other officials are concerned that new responsibilities would compromise local officials’ ability to ensure public safety, to sustain community relations critical to local policing, and to fulfill their critical role as first responders in the event of further attacks on homeland security. As Captain Maria Alvarenga-Watkins of the Metropolitan Washington DC Police Department explained:

Our government has an important responsibility to act on the very real threats of terrorism that are of concern to all of us. But I, and many others in the law enforcement community, strongly believe that deputizing police officers to be INS agents will not help in this fight against terrorism but will make our communities less safe and our country no more secure.

Counterterrorism experts, federal intelligence agents, and local police departments have all emphasized that identifying high-risk subjects who may pose a threat to national security begins with developing positive relationships between state and local law enforcement and the communities they serve.¹ Giving state and local police officers expanded authority to arrest members of the communities they protect based on minor immigration violations will destroy this trust and impede the collection of critical intelligence information required to fight terrorism. Broken trust also blunts communities’ willingness to report crimes and identify suspicious behavior to police, both of which contribute to public safety. Both pieces of legislation would thus undercut state and local law enforcement officials’ dual mission of homeland security and public safety.

These bills would not require any training before local police would begin enforcing federal civil immigration laws -- an approach that greatly increases the risk of civil rights abuses. These bills also provide immunity to law enforcement officials and agencies for any civil rights violations that arise out of pursuing undocumented immigrants who have committed no crimes. In short, both pieces of legislation not only allow untrained police officers to enforce immigration laws, they also impede any mechanisms to hold officers responsible for any civil rights abuses that do occur.

Even the Department of Homeland Security, the agency charged with enforcing immigration laws has expressed some concerns about the implications of the CLEAR Act. Spokesperson Paula Grenier for the Department of Homeland Security, Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (BICE), stated: “The enforcement of immigration laws is the responsibility of [federal immigration] officers. The police are not mandated to do that. We coordinate with them. They are an invaluable resource. But as far as arresting people for immigration violations, that's the function of our agency.”

These bills would require state and local law officials to report background information concerning all people without legal immigration status even if they are apprehended for unrelated offenses. These reporting requirements would in all likelihood inundate the NCIC database with extraneous information, which could further burden a system already identified as having problems with respect to the accuracy of its information. Coupled with the Justice Department's recent decision to exempt the FBI from the accuracy obligations of the Privacy Act, the CLEAR Act puts criminal justice agencies at even greater risk of expending critical investigative resources based on inaccurate, incomplete information.

Finally, as state governments are struggling to contain rapidly growing budget deficits, the CLEAR Act would create additional financial burdens. Although the Act proposes to pay for itself by awarding funds to states and localities from a portion of seized assets, it is unlikely that the assets seized from immigrants would be significant enough to pay for the expanded responsibilities; states would be forced make up the difference. In light of the enormous -- and essential -- homeland security burdens already facing state and local governments, the CLEAR Act costs far too much in lost freedom and security.

Endnotes ¹See Lawyers Committee for Human Rights, Comments filed with U.S. Department of Justice regarding proposed regulation change, INS No. 2241-02: Abbreviation or Waiver of Training for State or Local Law Enforcement Officers Authorized To Enforce Immigration Law During a Mass Influx of Aliens, April 28, 2003.