Comprehensive Immigration Reform passes U.S. Senate by 68-32 vote. Measure now advances to the House of Representatives.
ACLU statement on the bill's passage
ACLU of KY Program Director Kate Miller (pictured below, center) participated in an Immigration Reform panel discussion with Senator Rand Paul in Lexington just before the Memorial Day Weekend. Panelists were given the opportunity to ask Sen. Paul a question about his stance on the current immigration reform proposal. A Lexington Herald Leader news report gives a good summary of the event.
The immigration reform bill released April 17, 2013 (S. 744, Border Security, Economic Opportunity and Immigration Modernization Act of 2013) has the potential to be an historic advance for the civil rights and liberties of immigrants and all Americans. It will put millions of immigrants who contribute every day to the vitality of our country on a road to citizenship; and while it is certainly a breakthrough, it is in need of many improvements.
Read the bill itself here
The Bill is 844 pages long! We broke it down for you to two pages to download in English and Spanish, to help you talk about the proposal.
This immigration flowchart (provided in English and Spanish) breaks down the road to citizenship.
This brochure explores what the immigration reform proposal could mean for various groups within the 11 million aspiring Americans. Spanish version
Media Coverage:
ACLU of KY Lexington Herald Leader Op-Ed on Immigration Reform
Kentucky Center for Economic Policy calls pathway to citizenship "good for Kentucky's economy"
Watch an episode of KET's Kentucky Tonight featuring the ACLU of KY's Kate Miller and Enid Trucios-Haynes here
Watch an episode of KET'S Kentucky Tonight on Immigration Reform after Senate passage featuring the ACLU of KY's Kate Miller here, clip
Read more about the bill here
As written, the bill contains severe obstacles for many immigrants who aspire to be citizens. The roadmap to citizenship should not exclude people automatically based on old or minor crimes. The bill also calls on the government to spend billions of dollars in taxpayer money to further degrade civil liberties at the border with surveillance and checkpoints, even when prior security benchmarks have already been met and resources invested there are at an all-time high. The border region is already rife with civil liberties abuses committed by law enforcement. The bill makes mandatory a costly, insecure system to verify employment (E-Verify) that puts citizens at risk of losing their jobs and raises significant civil liberties concerns.
At the ACLU here in Kentucky, we will fight every step of the way to ensure that immigration reform achieves what the American people want – a roadmap to citizenship for immigrants and an immigration system that is fair and respects our civil rights and liberties.
