Operation Streamline Costly, Unjust and Ineffective

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- As Congress and the White House take up Comprehensive Immigration Reform (“CIR”), some have called for increased southwest border enforcement, even though southwest border apprehensions are at their lowest levels in 40 years and net migration from Mexico is at zero.  Operation Streamline, a controversial border enforcement initiative, has created a civil rights and human rights crisis of such proportion that the Vatican has called for its suspension.  Operation Streamline treats unlawful border crossers as high-level federal criminal justice priorities – routing border crossers into the overcrowded federal prison system.  Operation Streamline has also contributed to the dramatic increase of Latinos in federal prison serving time for immigration-status crimes.  The spike in federal immigration criminal prosecutions has burdened federal courts, increased the federal prison population, and profited private prison companies – all at a time when deep government spending cuts loom ahead.  Please join our panel of experts for a timely discussion of Operation Streamline. 

Friday, February 22, 2013
10 a.m. to 11 a.m.
Dirsksen Senate Office Building Rm. 226 (judiciary hearing room)

Experts on the panel:

Judge James Stiven, Retired U.S. Magistrate Judge for the Southern District of California
Heather E. Williams, First Assistant Federal Public Defender, District of Arizona
Grace Meng, Researcher, U.S. Program, Human Rights Watch
Moderator: Kevin Appleby, Director of the Office of Migration Policy and Public Affairs, U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops

For  more  information  please  contact  Jumana  Musa  at  Rights  Working  Group  jmusa@rightsworkinggroup.org  or   Joanne  Lin  jlin@dcaclu.org    at  the  American  Civil  Liberties  Union