Deportations
Under this legislation, immigrants convicted of qualifying crimes will be turned over to immigration enforcement authorities early in order to save money on their incarceration costs. The civil liberties concern was that many of those individuals – including some citizens and lawful permanent residents – would be pressuring into agreeing to deportation without fully understanding their right to contest it, or the possibility that they might avoid deportation altogether.
With strong support from the caucus of color, strong due process protections were included in the bill that passed the legislature. Regrettably, Gov. Gregoire used a section veto to strip out those protections, so the final measure included no due process protections at all.
