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Border Protection, Anti-terrorism and Illegal Immigration Control Act of 2005 [1]

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Date: 2026-10 

It would be a crime to assist an illegal immigrant to "remain in the United States... knowing or in reckless disregard of the fact that such person is an alien who lacks lawful authority to reside in or remain in the United States". [2] Furthermore, the prison term applicable to a removed alien, would also be applicable to anyone who knowingly aids or assists" that alien "to reenter the United States". [3]

Debate [ edit ]

The House version of the bill was opposed by a variety of migrant, social justice, humanitarian, and religious organizations, and other groups. Among the criticisms raised by opposition groups are that the proposed legislation might negatively affect over 11 million illegal immigrants and those associated with them, that it includes measures which create substantial barriers to community policing, and that it represents the most draconian anti-illegal immigration bill in nearly a century.

The bill does not specify one particular group over any other; passage of the bill would affect all illegal aliens living within the U.S. The fact that most of the protests to date have come largely from Mexican and Hispanic based population centers may stem from the fact that Hispanics are the largest undocumented-immigrant group in the country.

On the supportive side of the issue, it is argued that living illegally in the United States is civil infraction, and that this bill merely aims at re-cementing U.S. immigration codes that have long been neglected by changing the seriousness of the infraction from a civil to a criminal one. Supporters of the bill argue that it will increase border security by providing more US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents to the border, thereby helping to curtail any possible entry to the country by terrorists, and that the passage of this bill may help curtail drug trafficking and human trafficking from Mexico to the US by depriving smugglers of sources and contacts on the US side of the border.

Detractors say the bill includes measures that will infringe on the human rights of asylum seekers by stripping important due process protections, criminalizing status over which they may have no control, and dramatically limiting their access to essential services. Opponents of the bill argue that it would also redefine illegal immigrants as felons, and punish anyone guilty of providing them assistance. In addition, it would create several new mandatory minimum penalties for a variety of offenses, including some that would expose humanitarian workers, public-school teachers, church workers, and others whose only object is to provide relief and aid to five-year mandatory minimum prison sentences.

Contrary to some reports, the bill would not have involved massive numbers of deportations. It might have increased the ease of deporting of people caught by local law enforcement, but there are no provisions to actively search for illegal immigrants as happened during Operation Wetback.

Los Angeles Archbishop Roger Mahony spoke out on provisions in the immigration bills, he wrote to President Bush[5] that certain proposed measures would effectively outlaw the provision of charitable assistance and religious ministry to individuals not in valid immigration status. On Ash Wednesday, 2006, Cardinal Mahony announced that he would order the clergy and laity of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles to ignore H.R. 4437 if it were to become law.[6] He personally lobbied senators Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein to have the Senate consider a comprehensive immigration reform bill, rather than the enforcement-only bill that passed the House of Representatives.[7] Mahony also blamed the Congress for the illegal immigration crisis due to their failure to act on the issue in the previous 20 years, opposed H.R. 4437 as punitive and open to abusive interpretation, and supported S. 2611.[8][9]

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[1] Url: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Border_Protection,_Anti-terrorism_and_Illegal_Immigration_Control_Act_of_2005

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