Take Action: Oppose HR 875 and protect noncitizen victims of crime
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The Advocates is monitoring, and opposes, a bill expected for a vote in the U.S. House of Representatives this week. If passed, the bill will exploit personal tragedies and real public health concerns to expand the links between the criminal and immigration legal systems in extremely harmful ways. HR 875 would separate families and harm noncitizen victims of crime - including people who have lived in the U.S. for decades, have legal status, or who are victims of trafficking or crimes. These sweeping powers would apply for a single DUI incident - even where there was no conviction and with no apparent statute of limitations. Such an expansive bill violates due process and will harm our communities.
Call or write your Congressional representative TODAY and tell them you oppose HR 875.
The bill links DUI arrests and immigration enforcement even though marginalized communities face disproportionate over-policing and racial profiling. Adding immigration consequences means such communities face double penalties and will unfairly incentivize lawless immigration enforcement under the guise of public safety concerns.
This bill also harms survivors of domestic and gender-based violence and trafficking. A single DUI would make it more difficult for survivors of abuse and trafficking to get U or T visas or relief under VAWA. Traffickers often force their victims to drive home or to get supplies. It's not hard to imagine this bill becoming a tool for coercive control by abusers and traffickers using the threat of deportation against survivors of gender-based violence.
Driving while impaired is far too common and an important community and public health issue. About one million DUI arrests are made each year, and an estimated18.5 million people of all citizenship statuses drove under the influence of alcohol in 2020. We need to find common sense solutions to this issue, and it will not be solved by singling out immigrants for deportation, and in turn, destabilizing communities.
