Tell Your Senators to Protect Refugees Fleeing Persecution

Newsletter 37

March 23, 2005

Proposed Law Will Hurt Refugees

U.S. Senate to Consider REAL ID Act Soon

Take Action: Tell Your Senators to Protect Refugees Fleeing
Persecution

http://action.humanrightsfirst.org/campaign/oppose_realid/ind5ud8r27tdm8x

The United States Senate is poised to consider a bill that will
put the lives of refugees at risk of further persecution. The
bill, known as the REAL ID Act, will harm refugees fleeing
torture, forced abortions, honor killings, and other horrific
violence. The bill will make it much harder for refugees to
prove that they qualify for asylum and remove safeguards that
protect refugees from being sent back into the hands of their
persecutors.

The leadership of the House of Representatives has attached the
REAL ID Act to an emergency spending bill in an attempt to push
the Senate to accept these anti-refugee provisions without a
meaningful chance for discussion or debate.
Please contact your Senators and urge them to preserve our
nation's commitment to protecting refugees: Ask them to keep the
REAL ID Act out of the emergency spending bill.

Take Action: Tell Your Senators to Protect Refugees Fleeing
Persecution

http://action.humanrightsfirst.org/campaign/oppose_realid/ind5ud8r27tdm8x

The REAL ID Act

The REAL ID Act, if enacted into law, would undermine this
country's commitment to protecting those who flee from
political, religious and other kinds of persecution. The bill
would:

* Make it much harder for refugees to prove that they qualify
for asylum; and

* Prevent a U.S. federal court from stopping a refugee's
deportation to the country where she fears harm while the court
decides her case.

The bill not only expands an immigration judge's ability to deny
asylum based on minor inconsistencies, like a torture survivor's
failure to remember the date of his high school graduation; it
also allows an immigration judge to deny protection to a woman
who was raped by soldiers for her religious beliefs if she is
unable to tell an armed male airport inspector about the rape,
but later tells the judge.

One of the bill's most extreme provisions allows an asylum
seeker to be delivered back into the hands of her persecutors by
barring a U.S. federal court from issuing a "stay" to prevent
her deportation while her case is pending before the court.

The REAL ID Act was passed by the House of Representatives as
H.R. 418 on February 10, 2005. Then, on March 16, the House
attached it to an emergency spending bill relating to Iraq and
to tsunami aid (H.R. 1268).

This move puts additional pressure on the Senate to accept the
REAL ID Act's anti-refugee provisions without sufficient
consideration or debate.

What's Next?

The Senate is expected to take up this bill as early as the
first week of April. It is extremely urgent that Senators hear
immediately from constituents who are concerned about these
anti-refugee provisions.

Human Rights First calls upon the Senate to remove the
anti-refugee language of the REAL ID Act from the emergency
spending bill. Human Rights First, together with a diverse group
of faith-based, human rights, and refugee assistance
organizations, opposes this bill because it would harm refugees
and undermine this country's commitment to protecting those who
flee from persecution.

Go here To learn more about the REAL ID Act and its impact on
refugees:

http://action.humanrightsfirst.org/ct/Q7wVaMs16PBF/

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