Judicial

On Tuesday, February 12th, the Senate passed S. 47, a bill that reauthorizes the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) by a 78-22 margin. VAWA is our nation’s response to domestic and sexual violence and provides the greatest source of programming and funding for survivors of domestic and sexual violence in the United States. The bill is inclusive of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT), immigrant and Tribal survivors. These underserved communities were determined to be priorities of the more than 2,000 victim services advocates across the country who worked for the past two years to create a bill that reaches all victims.

A plaque at the base of the Statue of Liberty famously reads “give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free.” Emma Lazarus was so moved by the plight of immigrants in New York City that she penned these immortal words, which have come to represent America’s promise as a beacon of hope ever since. 130 years since she penned those words, our nation still finds itself wrestling with the question of how best to treat those who would join our ranks as Americans. I say we should all embrace Comprehensive Immigration Reform because immigration has helped make our nation the complex, wonderful and prosperous land it is today.

In Chicago, if you ask a school-aged child their number one fear, it’s not braces or a book report. It’s being shot on the way to school. While law enforcement officials around the country face the monumental task of cracking down on the thousands of illegal weapons that flood our streets and take innocent lives each day, it’s children in Chicago who bear the brunt of such violence. Last year in my hometown of Chicago alone, gun violence led to more than 500 homicides and the seizure of more than 7,400 illegal firearms by the Chicago Police Department.

“The cornerstone of the American judicial system is the trial courts,” the late Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist said, “in which witnesses testify, juries deliberate, and justice is done.” But four years of delays in nominating and confirming district judges threaten the ability of the federal trial courts to carry that weight. To keep witnesses testifying, juries deliberating, and justice being done in the federal courts, we need to rebuild an efficient machinery for putting trial judges on the bench.

It seems everyone has some advice for beleaguered Republicans these days, especially when it comes to Hispanic voters and the issue of immigration.
 
Among the many groups and interests who may or may not have the best interests of the Republican Party at heart is the Hispanic Leadership Network, which bills itself as a coalition of Hispanic Republicans. In an appeal to congressional Republicans, the HLN suggests that the party’s rhetoric on immigration policy is the decisive impediment to winning more of the Hispanic vote.

It is a fact that our current family-based immigration system is broken, with massive backlogs, arbitrary quotas, and inhumane processes that keep families apart. It has not been updated in over two decades; its dysfunction keeps spouses, children and their parents separated for years and often decades. Current constraints within the legal immigration process place undue burdens on our American families and our economy. For instance, nearly 4.3 million people, including 1.96 million Asian and Pacific Islanders, are waiting in family immigration backlogs for unconscionable periods of time to reunite with their family members.

Neither the Democratic nor the Republican versions of the Violence Against Women Act survived the last Congress. Now Democrats, headed by Vermont Senator Patrick Leahy, vow immediate action on a new VAWA that does little to alter current flawed policies on domestic violence. The long hiatus in VAWA authorization represents a golden opportunity to get right what we’ve gotten wrong for so long.
 
VAWA’s detriments are too numerous to deal with here, but surely if we’re going to spend almost half a billion dollars to combat domestic violence, don’t we want a law that actually decreases its incidence?

U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia Judge Charles Pannell assumes senior status Friday after 13 years of valuable service. This action means that the bench experiences 72 vacancies in 677 district court judgeships and the Northern District has three in twelve, two of which are “judicial emergencies” due to their length. These openings – more than ten percent nationwide and one quarter in the Northern District – undermine justice. Accordingly, President Barack Obama must swiftly nominate, and senators promptly confirm, judges to fill the empty positions.

President Obama’s second term is but weeks old and his “to do” list is growing: reducing gun violence, managing the fiscal cliff and budget sequestration, raising the debt ceiling to pay the nation’s bills, and now following his major address in Nevada this week, comprehensive immigration reform and dealing with the 11 million undocumented immigrants residing in the U.S.  

President Obama has said one of his biggest regrets from his first term was that he didn’t pass immigration reform. We want to make sure he won’t have the same regret four years from now.

The Fair Immigration Reform Movement (FIRM) and the millions of Latino and immigrant families we represent are committed to working with the president and Congress to pass legislation that will provide a path to citizenship for the 11 million aspiring Americans living in the United States.