California SR 114: Relative to immigration

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 |Add To My Favorites | Version: 07/03/18 - Enrolled
 06/26/18 - Amended Senate
 06/19/18 - Amended Senate
 06/14/18 - Introduced

 SR-114 (2017-2018)

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SR114:v96#DOCUMENTBill Start

 Enrolled
 July 03, 2018

 Passed
 IN 
 Senate
 July 02, 2018

 Amended
 IN 
 Senate
 June 26, 2018

 Amended
 IN 
 Senate
 June 19, 2018

 CALIFORNIA LEGISLATURE—
 2017–2018 REGULAR SESSION

 Senate Resolution

No. 114

Introduced by Senators De León, Beall, Lara, Hueso, Atkins, Dodd, Glazer, Hernandez, Leyva, McGuire, Monning, Skinner, Wieckowski, and Wiener

June 14, 2018

Relative to immigration

LEGISLATIVE COUNSEL'S DIGEST

SR 114, De León.

Digest Key

Bill Text

WHEREAS, In May 2018, the Trump Administration ordered the federal prosecution of any individual caught crossing the border illegally; and

WHEREAS, The Department of Justice and the Department of Homeland Security have implemented a “zero-tolerance” policy in which those who cross the border outside of legal ports of entry are automatically charged; and

WHEREAS, There is no law that calls for separating children from their parents. The Trump Administration chose a policy of family separation as a punitive measure intended to deter asylum seekers; and

WHEREAS, Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen has insisted that separating children when parents are prosecuted for crossing the border is no different than separating children from parents who have been criminally convicted and sent to prison; and

WHEREAS, Attorney General Jeff Sessions stated in regard to the Trump Administration’s policy, “If you’re smuggling a child, then we’re going to prosecute you, and that child will be separated from you, probably, as required by law. If you don’t want your child separated, then don’t bring them across the border illegally. It’s not our fault that somebody does that”; and

WHEREAS, The Trump Administration’s “zero-tolerance” policy led to the separation of approximately 2,500 children from their parents. These children were placed in federal detention facilities and foster shelters, hundreds of miles away from their parents; and

WHEREAS, Many of the parents under prosecution are seeking asylum, as is their right under national and international laws; and

WHEREAS, Asylum is a protection granted to foreign nationals already in the United States or at the border who meet the international law definition of a “refugee”: “a person who is unable or unwilling to return to his or her home country, due to past persecution or a well-founded fear of being persecuted in the future on account of race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion.” The United States Congress incorporated this definition into the immigration law in the Refugee Act of 1980; and

WHEREAS, United States Citizenship and Immigration Services describes the process for asylum as follows: “You may apply for asylum status regardless of how you arrived in the United States or your current immigration status”; and

WHEREAS, Despite claims by the federal government that families crossing at official ports of entry will have an opportunity to ask for asylum, parents who are immigrating have been turned away or arrested and separated from their children; and

WHEREAS, Few refugees are granted asylum annually. According to Syracuse University’s Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, approximately 62 percent of applicants were denied asylum in 2016; and

WHEREAS, The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights has stated that the Trump Administration’s practice of separating children from migrant families entering the United States violates their rights and international law; and

WHEREAS, Parents whose children were removed have received little to no information with regards to the location of their children and the process for reunification. In some reported instances, parents have been deported to their country of origin without their children; and

WHEREAS, A Congolese woman and child arrived at a United States port of entry near San Diego and asked for asylum, with the mother fearing death if she returned to the Democratic Republic of the Congo. The daughter was separated from her mother, without explanation, and sent to a detention center in Chicago; and

WHEREAS, A mother from El Salvador, who was fleeing the gangs threatening her 16-year-old