The recent legislation passed by the House of Representatives, H.R. 4437, criminalizes immigrants who are a vital part of making our country strong. According to H.R. 4437, they are deemed felons at the same time that their access to the courts is severely limited.

In addition to criminalizing a large part of immigrant communities, the bill criminalizes public schoolteachers, family members of immigrants, religious workers and community workers for assisting undocumented immigrants. This bill is not in accordance with our values of democracy, diversity, and human rights.

The bill will affect over 11 million immigrants and millions more of our family members and communities and, as such, represents the harshest anti-immigrant bill in over a century.

The year 2006 represents a critical opportunity for Congress to formulate a just solution to our nations broken immigration system.

We, the undersigned, oppose the undemocratic, discriminatory and anti-community bill HR 4437 and demand a path to legal status for the millions of workers and families contributing to this country (not a guestworker program of work and leave), faster family reunification, equal protection of labor rights for immigrant workers, and respect for immigrants human and civil rights, including the reduction of detention and deportation, an end to collaboration between DHS and other public agencies, and an end to the deaths and abuses of migrants at the borders.