Michele Wucker is the author of Why the Cocks Fight: Dominicans, Haitians, and the Struggle for Hispaniola (Hill & Wang, 1999).

Olufolake Olalaye, a Nigerian mother of two, was accused of shoplifting when she tried to return $14.99 worth of baby clothes without a receipt in 1993. She plead guilty but received a suspended sentence.

Ralph Richardson moved to Atlanta from Haiti when he was 2 years old; now 33, he served a brief sentence for drug possession in 1993 but after that built a successful cleaning business and young family.

John Gaul was adopted from Bangkok at an early age, but a paperwork snafu stripped him of U.S. citizenship; when he was 19, he was arrested for writing bad checks and stealing a car, for which he served 20 months in prison.

The consequences? Because of 1996 legislation that retroactively added "deportation" to their sentences, Olalaye and Richardson have been taken from their families and are awaiting deportation. Gaul was sent to Thailand, a country whose language he does not speak and where he has no known family.

Fix 96

The 1996 immigration laws trample rights

These American stories come to you courtesy of the Illegal Immigration Control and Immigrant Responsibility Act. Sept. 30 marks the third anniversary of this law, which helped push deportations to a record 171,154 in 1998, up 50% from 1997, also a record year. It came on the heels of its Orwellian cousins, the Anti-Terrorist and Effective Death Penalty Act and the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Act. Ostensibly designed to make America a better place for Americans, the 1996 laws trample rights -- things like, say, due process and judicial independence -- that supposedly are what this country is all about.

You will be hearing a lot more about these draconian laws from the National Immigration Forum and the broad coalition of immigrant-rights and civil-liberties groups it has assembled under the umbrella of its new "Fix 96" campaign. On Sept. 17, they will rally in Washington, D.C., to pressure Congress to reconsider the ill-crafted laws.

Under the 1996 laws, immigrants do not have the right to fair and impartial hearings, nor to be freed on bond pending trial. They are subject to detention and deportation for minor offenses committed years earlier -- even if they have served their full sentences or if their sentences were suspended.

Worse, immigration judges no longer have discretion in sentencing: They must deport legal immigrants who in the past have been convicted of crimes with a sentence of one year or more. Indefinite detention is the fate of immigrants from home countries like Cuba, Vietnam or other such hip vacation spots that do not take back deportees.

Immigration advocates are pushing for the repeal of summary deportation, of the use of secret evidence that immigrants have no opportunity to refute in deportation hearings, and of the exit-entry control identification-card system. Finally, legislators are beginning to take notice. A few bills are winding their way through Congress to roll back some of the 1996 provisions.

A backlash afoot

Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA) has introduced legislation that would allow the attorney general to cancel some deportation orders and that would shrink the crime categories requiring deportation. Rep. Bill McCollum (R-FL) has introduced a bill to establish a court for deportation cases and appeals. Sen. John Chafee (R-RI) and presidential contender/Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) are sponsors of a measure that would restore some medical assistance, as Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan (D-NY) introduced a similar bill.

Unlike three years ago, these bills are in politicians' interest. The immigrant-bashing mentality (remember Patrick Buchanan in 1994?) behind the 1996 laws has created a backlash.

In July, a Seattle court ruled that indefinite detention of immigrants was illegal. In August, California Gov. Gray Davis (D) reached an agreement effectively abandoning Proposition 187, the 1994 ballot initiative to deny school and welfare benefits to immigrants. Presidential hopefuls Al Gore, the Democratic vice president, and Texas Gov. George W. Bush (R) have been stumping for Latino votes.

The Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS), meanwhile, has come under fire and is up for a major overhaul. And a February Gallup poll showed that 51% of Americans favor keeping immigration the same or increasing it, marking the first time in 22 years that such a poll showed at least plurality support.

Anti-immigrant voices are far from silent, though. Advocates of limiting immigration -- the Washington-based Center for Immigration Studies and Harvard economist George Borjas among them -- have pulled out their own intellectual arsenal, arguing that immigrants increase poverty and that we should slow legal immigration dramatically. Proposition 187 supporters are fighting back, threatening a recall of Davis and promising a new initiative.

More American than Americans?

But for now, the pro-immigrant forces seem to have the upper hand. Immigrants themselves are becoming citizens, registering to vote, contacting local representatives and suing. This summer, they fought billboards in Queens, N.Y. -- an area where 55% of the population are immigrants -- that read: "Over 80% of Americans support very little or no more immigration. Is anyone listening to us?" (The signs were found not to have proper permits and taken down.)

In Alabama, the Dominican-born couple Julio and Carmen Telleria and South Korean immigrant Byong-Rye Ahn sued a tax assessor for denying them tax credits because they did not speak English. In Miami, Haitians rallied Sept. 3 in support of Richardson and other migrants whose lives have been ripped apart. They will do so again Sept. 27 to coincide with Richardson's next hearing.

The brightest spot in the 1996 laws may be the way immigrants have responded. It could not be more American.