Date: Wed, 08  Oct  2003 20:53:10 -0400
From: "The American Civil Liberties Union" <belmonte@MIT.EDU>
To: "The American Civil Liberties Union" <belmonte@mit.edu>
Subject: oppose HR 2671, the Clear Law Enforcement for Criminal Alien Removal Act

Thank you for using The American Civil Liberties Union Mail System

Message sent to the following recipients:
Representative Capuano
Message text follows:

Matthew Belmonte
[address]


October 8, 2003

[recipient address was inserted here]


 [recipient name was inserted here],

I urge you to oppose the CLEAR Act (HR 2671).  It 
would hinder law enforcement agencies' ability to do their job and 
inevitably lead to civil rights violations of American citizens and 
immigrants.

Local police should not be tasked with enforcing federal immigration law.  
Police attribute plummeting crime rates over the last decade or so to the 
`community policing' philosophy, where local police work to gain the trust 
and confidence of the residents they are charged with protecting.  
Enactment of the CLEAR Act would undermine the efforts of local police, as 
word that they are now immigration agents will spread like wildfire in 
immigrant communities.  Police chiefs themselves have argued that when 
immigrants and their family members are too scared to report crimes and 
suspicious activity, crimes go unsolved and the safety of the entire 
community is jeopardised. 

There are nearly eleven million naturalised citizens of the United States, 
and more than twenty-five million native-born Americans of Latin American 
and Asian descent.  Some officers would inevitably stop and question 
people based on their ethnic background or their accent, leading to 
violations of the rights of legal residents whose only offence is "looking 
foreign."

Once again, I urge you to oppose the CLEAR Act.  

I look forward to hearing your thoughts on this matter.

Sincerely,


Matthew Belmonte