On June 27, 2013, the full Senate passed the “Border Security, Economic Opportunity and Immigration Modernization Act” (S. 744). When initially introduced in April, I was cautiously optimistic that this piece of legislation would finally begin to address many of the human rights violations in the immigration enforcement, detention and deportation process which are documented in Amnesty International reports such as Jailed Without Justice: Immigration detention in the USA and In Hostile Terrain: Human rights violations in immigration enforcement in the U.S. Southwest.
S. 744 as introduced by the “Gang of Eight” had its problems – such as bolstering flawed immigration enforcement, detention and deportation programs – but there were also many provisions which took concrete steps towards addressing human rights violations.