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![handle is hein.civil/usccwu0001 and id is 1 raw text is:
U.S. Commission on Civil Rights
Crossing Borders: The Administration of Justice and Civil Rights Protections in
the Immigration and Asylum Context
Project Summary
January 2003
Introduction
The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights has long recognized the importance of ensuring the just
application of civil rights laws and principles to those who come to America's shores in search of
a better life or to escape political, religious, or ethnic persecution in their original homelands.
From the Native Americans who first crossed the land bridge over the Bering Straits to the
Americas, to the Irish escaping famine across the Atlantic, to the Chinese toiling on the railroads
of the American West, to the modern-day Mexicans who provide a source of cheap labor for a
myriad of non-glamorous but, essential, industries, to the many other peoples who have landed
on these shores over the centuries, the importance of immigration to the development of this
country cannot be overstated. Immigrants seeking to escape intolerance and persecution, such as
the Pilgrims and East European Jews, have also contributed immensely to the fabric of American
society. As the Commission noted in its seminal report The Tarnished Golden Door: Civil Rights
Issues in Immigration (1980), issued over two decades ago, America is a nation of immigrants
and their descendants . . . [t]he names of immigrants and their children and their children's
children dot the history of America, for it was their labor and toil that built this country.
The Commission has devoted significant attention over the years to studying the impact of U.S.
immigration and refugee laws and policies on the civil rights of those in the process of becoming
new Americans, or seeking protection on our shores. The Commission followed up The
Tarnished Golden Door with a report-Immigration Reform and Control Act: Assessing the
Evaluation Process (1989)-which examined the findings by the General Accounting Office on
the extent of discrimination and the burden on employers under the employer sanctions provision
of the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986. The Commission also raised the plight of
Haitian refugees and potential violations of their civil rights early in the first Clinton
administration.
Against this backdrop of historical interest in immigration matters, and in light of concerns about
civil rights issues flowing from relatively recent changes in the country's immigration laws and
policies, the Commission embarked at the turn of the millennium on a series of projects tied to
the theme of evaluating the interplay of U.S. refugee and asylum laws and policies with civil
rights enforcement in the immigration context. This overview focus was broadened after the
events of September 11, 2001, to also include an evaluation of reported increased encroachment
on immigrant and refugee civil rights as a result of U.S. antiterrorism policies and legislation,](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.civil/usccwu0001&div=1&collection=&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)