IV 
114TH CONGRESS 
2D SESSION 
H. RES. 708 
Expressing the sense of the House of Representatives that the immigration 
policies of the United States should reduce automatic removal and deten-
tion, restore due process for immigrants, and repeal unnecessary barriers 
to legal immigration. 
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 
APRIL 27, 2016 
Mr. GRIJALVA (for himself, Mr. ELLISON, Ms. JUDY CHU of California, Mr. 
HINOJOSA, Ms. MOORE, Mr. JOHNSON of Georgia, Mr. RANGEL, Mr. 
TAKANO, Mr. POCAN, Ms. NORTON, Mr. TAKAI, Mr. VARGAS, Ms. HAHN, 
Mr. TED LIEU of California, Mr. HONDA, Ms. JACKSON LEE, Mr. CON-
YERS, Ms. EDWARDS, Ms. MCCOLLUM, Ms. BROWN of Florida, Mr. NAD-
LER, Mrs. NAPOLITANO, Mr. MCDERMOTT, Mr. MCGOVERN, Ms. LEE, 
Mr. SERRANO, Mr. HASTINGS, Mr. CARTWRIGHT, Ms. VELA´ZQUEZ, Ms. 
MENG, Mr. SMITH of Washington, and Mr. VAN HOLLEN) submitted the 
following resolution; which was referred to the Committee on the Judici-
ary 
RESOLUTION 
Expressing the sense of the House of Representatives that 
the immigration policies of the United States should 
reduce automatic removal and detention, restore due 
process for immigrants, and repeal unnecessary barriers 
to legal immigration. 
Whereas April 24, 2016, marks the 20-year anniversary of 
the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 
1996, and September 30, 2016, marks the 20-year anni-
versary of the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant 
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•HRES 708 IH 
Responsibility Act of 1996, laws which dramatically ex-
panded the criminalization of immigrants by expanding 
the range of convictions for which immigrants are auto-
matically detained and removed; 
Whereas there is growing bipartisan acknowledgment of the 
devastating impact that the criminal justice system has 
on communities of color and that an immigration system 
that relies on the criminalization of immigrants com-
pounds that injustice; 
Whereas these laws removed discretion from immigration 
judges and restricted their ability to consider whether to 
remove an immigrant or weigh the individual cir-
cumstances of a case, and leaders from the National As-
sociation of Immigration Judges support the restoration 
of this discretion; 
Whereas these laws prohibit judicial review of case decisions, 
which undermine the constitutional protections of due 
process; 
Whereas leaders from law enforcement, including the Na-
tional Association of District Attorneys and the Associa-
tion of Prosecuting Attorneys, acknowledge that these 
laws drastically expanded the definition of aggravated 
felonies to be overly broad and that the Congress must 
narrow this definition; 
Whereas the overbroad definition of ‘‘aggravated felony’’, 
which includes petty offenses such as shoplifting, writing 
a bad check, or misdemeanor controlled substance of-
fenses, has led to the removal of lawful permanent resi-
dents who, on average, have lived legally in the United 
States for 15 years; 
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•HRES 708 IH 
Whereas Human Rights Watch found that between 1997 and 
2007, of the 900,000 immigrants removed on ‘‘criminal 
grounds,’’ 72 percent were convicted of nonviolent of-
fenses; 
Whereas these laws require mandatory detention and have led 
to the incarceration and long-term detention of thousands 
of immigrants in for-profit detention centers without ac-
cess to representation; 
Whereas the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Re-
sponsibility Act of 1996 created the 287(g) program, 
which deputizes local law enforcement to enforce Federal 
immigration law, threatens the rights of United States 
citizens and immigrants alike, and contributes to racial 
profiling in multiple jurisdictions; 
Whereas these laws created several fast-track removal proc-
esses that violate the due process rights of noncitizens, 
asylum seekers, and other vulnerable populations by ex-
pediting their removal without adequate opportunity to 
contest their case; and 
Whereas the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Re-
sponsibility Act of 1996 created the three-year, ten-year, 
and permanent bars, which prohibit immigrants who have 
a valid family sponsor from obtaining lawful permanent 
resident status, and other barriers that restrict the ability 
of otherwise eligible individuals to obtain lawful immigra-
tion status: Now, therefore, be it 
Resolved, That the House of Representatives supports 
immigration legislation that— 
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•HRES 708 IH 
(1) acknowledges that immigrants and their 
families in the United States have inherent dignity 
and are deserving of human rights; 
(2) restores proportionality and fairness to our 
immigration system by updating the definition of 
‘‘aggravated felony’’; 
(3) restores discretion to immigration judges to 
waive grounds of inadmissibility and deportability, 
which determine who is removed and who can obtain 
permanent status, based on family and community 
equities, humanitarian considerations, other individ-
ualized circumstances, or because it is in the public 
interest; 
(4) restores judicial review of case decisions to 
protect due process; 
(5) eliminates mandatory detention and pro-
longed detention for immigrants in all cases and pre-
serves the Secretary of Homeland Security’s author-
ity to exercise discretion in determining when to de-
tain an individual; 
(6) repeals the 287(g) program and any suc-
cessor programs that similarly entangle local law en-
forcement with Federal immigration authorities; and 
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