Testifying before Council, witnesses slam 1996 immigration law

Offering a forum on the fate of students, inmates, and undocumented immigrants, Philadelphia City Council heard testimony Tuesday about what witnesses called "the school-to-prison-to-deportation pipeline."

Using the 20th anniversary of the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act as a peg, witnesses said the landmark 1996 federal law should be repealed because it removed judicial discretion and due process from the deportation process.

While Council has no jurisdiction over federal law, it can advance a resolution asking Congress to act. Councilwoman Helen Gym, who presided at the hearing along with Councilwoman Jannie L. Blackwell, said they would do that.

At issue is what to do about the minority of immigrants and refugees who committed crimes, served their time, and faced mandatory deportation without a chance to argue they had been rehabilitated.

Mia-lia Kiernan, codirector of 1Love Movement, a Philadelphia support group for Cambodian immigrants and refugees, said the 1996 law "broadened the definition of aggravated felony to include everything from shoplifting to murder. It made deportation for an aggravated felony permanent, meaning no right to return to the U.S., ever. It applied retroactively, meaning you could be permanently deported for a crime committed before these laws even existed."

Among the 100 or so spectators were a dozen holding signs that read "Fix '96" and "Not1More" deportation.

The witnesses included Chally Dang, 34, formerly of Philadelphia, who was deported to Cambodia in 2011. He testified via Skype. He said he was 15 in 1997 when he was arrested for aggravated assault and gun possession. He was tried as an adult, convicted, and served five and a half years in prison. In 2003, he was released into the custody of Immigration and Customs Enforcement. But because of an administrative matter concerning travel documents, he was not deported right away.

"Instead," Dang said, "I was released into society as a rehabilitated young man. I worked, bought a home, had kids, and created a good life for my family."

His deportation after the travel documents were secured ended all that, including his marriage.

"I've watched from afar as [Philadelphia] has taken stands to defend the rights of immigrant families and formerly incarcerated people," he said. "I hope the city keeps on this path, and works to change laws so people like me will have a chance to return home."

Kong Iv, the tearful mother of Mout Iv, another deportee, testified in person, in Khmer, through an interpreter.

"I still don't understand the laws that deported my son," she said. "I know he was in a fight with other teens his age. . . . He came out of prison in his 20s. . . . Seven years after he came home, he was deported. . . . It's like a knife cutting through my heart. . . . Without him here, it's like I have no soul."

Immigration lawyer Djung Tran, representing the Asian Pacific American Bar Association of Pennsylvania, testified that "the retroactive nature" of the 1996 law "meant that pre-1996 convictions became ex post facto the basis for new mandatory deportation actions, something that defendants could not have foreseen, nor been properly legally advised about, when they voluntarily pleaded guilty to an offense before 1996."

For that and other reasons, she said, the 1996 law should be rolled back.

mmatza@phillynews.com

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@MichaelMatza1