[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 139 (Wednesday, December 8, 2004)]
[Senate]
[Pages S12015-S12017]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
NOMINATION OF WILLIAM SANCHEZ
Mr. DURBIN. Today the Senate confirmed William Sanchez to be the
Special Counsel for Immigration-Related Unfair Employment Practices in
the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice. I do not
oppose his confirmation, but I have serious concerns about the Justice
Department's decision in September to postpone an important,
statutorily-authorized grant program until Mr. Sanchez's confirmation.
Now that Mr. Sanchez has been confirmed, I urge the Justice Department
to reinstate the grant program at once.
This Civil Rights Division grant program plays a critical role in
protecting the rights of immigrant workers. Every year since 1991,
nonprofit organizations throughout the Nation have received these
grants to educate workers about their rights to a workplace free of
discrimination and abuse. These organizations play a vital role in
educating employers and the public about the civil rights and
immigration laws Congress has passed to protect U.S. citizens, lawful
permanent residents, refugees, and asylees.
In July, the Justice Department publicly announced that 13
organizations from around the country would receive a grant in 2004.
Several of the intended grantees, including Chicago-based Heartland
Alliance for Human Needs & Human Rights, acted in good faith reliance
on the Justice Department's grant announcement and made hiring and
resource allocation decisions accordingly.
In September, however, the Justice Department announced that it had
decided to postpone the grant program without explanation. Senator
Leahy, Senator Kennedy, and I wrote to the Justice Department seeking
an explanation for their decision and requesting that they reconsider
it.
In October, the Justice Department responded with a letter indicating
that the grant program would be reinstated once the Senate confirmed
Mr. Sanchez, who would head the Civil Rights Division office that
administers the grant program. Although I disagree with this decision
to delay the grant program until Mr. Sanchez's confirmation, I was
pleased by the Justice Department's assurance that they intended to
continue the program once Mr. Sanchez assumes his office.
Today, in the wake of Mr. Sanchez's confirmation, Senator Leahy,
Senator Kennedy, and I wrote again to the Justice Department, urging
Mr. Sanchez and the Civil Rights Division to follow through with the
commitment made to the 13 intended grantees in July. We requested that
the grants be issued by the end of the calendar year.
I ask unanimous consent to have printed in the Record the letter
regarding this important grant program that Senator Leahy, Senator
Kennedy, and I sent to the Justice Department today, as well as the
other correspondence to which I have referred.
[[Page S12016]]
There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in
the Record, as follows:
U.S. Senate,
Committee on the Judiciary,
Washington, DC, December 7, 2004.
Hon. R. Alexander Acosta,
Assistant Attorney General, Civil Rights Division, U.S.
Department of Justice, 950 Pennsylvania Ave., NW.,
Washington, DC.
Dear Mr. Acosta: We are in receipt of a letter dated
October 13, 2004 from Assistant Attorney General William
Moschella addressing our concerns about the postponement of
the Civil Rights Division's public education grant program
administered by the Office of Special Counsel for
Immigration-Related Unfair Employment Practices.
We are encouraged by the Justice Department's commitment to
this important, statutorily-created grant program and by Mr.
Moschella's representation that the close of the fiscal year
does not affect the Civil Rights Division's ability to award
these grants. Although we disagree with your decision to
delay the grant program until confirmation of William
Sanchez, we are pleased by your assurance that you intend to
continue this program once Mr. Sanchez assumes his office.
We write to urge you and Mr. Sanchez to dispense $745,000
by the end of this calendar year to the 13 nonprofit
organizations who reasonably believed they had been promised
this grant money in July. As we indicated in our letter of
September 29, 2004, these 13 organizations had strong reason
to believe that they would receive a grant by the end of the
fiscal year. Many of them made resource allocation decisions
in good faith reliance on the Department's July announcement.
Please provide assurance that the 13 organizations promised
2004 grant money will receive their grants by the end of the
calendar year, and that the grant program will be
administered in 2005 without delay or postponement.
Sincerely,
Dick Durbin,
United States Senator.
Patrick Leahy,
United States Senator.
Ted Kennedy,
United States Senator.
U.S. Department of Justice,
Office of Legislative Affairs,
Washington, DC, October 13, 2004.
Hon. Richard J. Durbin,
Committee on the Judiciary, U.S. Senate, Washington, DC.
Dear Senator Durbin: This is in response to your letter of
September 29, 2004, inquiring into the status of the public
education grant program operated by the Civil Rights
Division's Office of Special Counsel for Immigration-Related
Unfair Employment Practices (``OSC''). We are sending a
similar response to the co-signatories of your letter.
The Department shares your view as to the importance of
this program. Our outreach and training program is an
important component of our overall effort to address the
serious problem of immigration-related employment
discrimination. We intend to continue this program when the
President's nominee for Special Counsel, William Sanchez,
assumes his office. Once confirmed, Mr. Sanchez will have
discretion with regard to when and whom to award grant
monies.
Your letter specifically asked whether funding for the
grants would be available after September 30, 2004. As you
are aware, although OSC's authorizing statute includes an
authorization for up to $10,000,000 per fiscal year to
implement and operate the public education program, no
appropriation has been made for the program. Nonetheless, the
Department believes that this program is important, and each
year has used funds appropriated for salaries and expenses
for the Department's legal activities (e.g., Supreme Court
proceedings, tax and criminal matters, etc.) to support a
public outreach campaign to disseminate information
respecting the rights and remedies available to workers under
OSC's statutes. As a result, the close of a fiscal year does
not affect the Division's ability to award grants.
Your letter notes with just concern that some of the grant
recipients may have relied on the Department's July 15, 2004,
press release. As is the case with all such decisions, the
Department took steps to make sure that no group improperly
relied on such a preliminary announcement. Enclosed with this
letter please find correspondence directed to each of the
groups named in that press release. As you will see, the
award announcements at that time were ``provisional'' only,
and remained ``conditioned on the successful completion of a
general background and financial review to be conducted by
the Office of the Comptroller, Office of Justice Programs
(OJP).''
If we can be of assistance in other matters, please do not
hesitate to contact the Department.
Sincerely,
William E. Moschella,
Assistant Attorney General.
Enclosure.
U.S. Department of Justice,
Civil Rights Division,
Washington, DC, September 16, 2004.
Ms. Vanna Slaughter,
Catholic Charities of Dallas, Immigration Counseling
Services, 5415 Maple Avenue, Suite 200, Dallas, TX.
Dear Ms. Slaughter: I write to inform you that Office of
Special Counsel's public education grant program and the
grantee training conference scheduled for September 29-30, is
being postponed until later in the year.
If your organization was awarded a grant by the Office of
Special Counsel in 2003 that has remaining funds, please
immediately request from us a ``no cost extension through
December 31, 2004.'' This extension will permit your
organization to have continued use of those funds through
December 31 of this year. Please send your request via e-mail
to [email protected] no later than September 20,
2004.
We appreciate your cooperation and understanding.
Sincerely,
Loretta King,
Deputy Assistant Attorney General.
U.S. Department of Justice,
Civil Rights Division,
Washington, DC 20530, June 30, 2004.
Re Grant Award for Antidiscrimination Outreach Public
Education Campaign
Ms. Sonia Harb,
Director, Arab Community Center for Economic & Social
Services, 2651 Saulino Ct., Dearborn, MI.
Dear Ms. Sonia Harb: thank you for your proposal to conduct
a public education program on the antidiscrimination
provisions of the Immigration and Nationality Act. I am
pleased to inform you that your organization has been
provisionally selected as a recipient of a grant in the
amount of $60,000. Final acceptance of your proposal will be
conditioned on the successful completion of a general
background and financial review to be conducted by the Office
of the Comptroller, Office of Justice Programs (OJP). You
will soon be contacted by officials from that office. The
grant award may also be conditioned on your acceptance of any
additional modifications of your proposal that prove
necessary. We expect the final processing to be completed
promptly. Please respond quickly to any questions that OJP
may have.
You will hear from us again shortly with more details about
the grant. The training seminar for grantees is tentatively
scheduled for September 29-30, 2004, in Washington, D.C. We
will get back to you with more information about that as soon
as arrangements are finalized.
Grantees play a major role in accomplishing the mission of
the Office of Special Counsel. We value our grantee
partnerships greatly and look forward to working with you. If
you have any immediate questions, please feel free to call
Lilia Irizarry, our Acting Public Affairs Specialist, at 202-
616-5594 or toll-free at 1-800-255-7688.
Sincerely,
Katherine A. Baldwin,
Deputy Special Counsel.
U.S. Senate,
Committee on the Judiciary,
Washington, DC, September 29, 2004.
Hon. R. Alexander Acosta,
Assistant Attorney General, Civil Rights Division, U.S.
Department of Justice, 950 Pennsylvania Ave., NW,
Washington, DC.
Dear Mr. Acosta, we recently learned that the Civil Rights
Division has decided to postpone indefinitely the public
education grant program administered by the Division's Office
of Special Counsel for Immigration-Related Unfair Employment
Practices (OSC), which plays a critical role in protecting
the rights of immigrant workers. Staff has contacted the
Office of Legislative Affairs about this matter in recent
days but has not received an explanation for the decision to
postpone this important program. We are very concerned about
this decision and are writing to urge you to reverse it
immediately. If the grants are not provided to the intended
recipients before September 30, 2004--the end of fiscal year
2004--the grant funding may no longer be available.
The OSC grant program is statutorily created, and we
understand that Congress has appropriated funding for the
grant program since 1991. To our knowledge, this is the first
time the grant program has ever been postponed. Furthermore,
we are not aware that the Justice Department advised Congress
about its intention to postpone this important grant program,
prior to its recent decision to do so. Accordingly, we
request that you advise us about the authority you relied
upon to postpone this statutorily authorized and
Congressionally appropriated grant program.
As the attached press release indicates, the Civil Rights
Division announced on July 15, 2004 that 13 nonprofit
organizations in regions throughout the country would receive
a total of $745,000 in OSC grants. These 13 selected grant
recipients--ranging from Catholic Charities of St.
Petersburg, Florida, to the Arab Community Center for
Economic and Social Services in Dearborn, Michigan, to the
Central American Resource Center in Los Angeles, to Legal Aid
Services of Oregon--have acted in good faith reliance on this
announcement and made hiring and resource allocation
decisions accordingly.
For example, one selected grant recipient based in
Chicago--Heartland Alliance for Human Needs & Human Rights
(in partnership with the Chicago Interfaith Committee on
Workers Issues)--has indicated that it may have to lay off an
employee who was hired in reliance on your grant
announcement.
Not only would the 13 organizations be harmed by the loss
of this promised grant money, so too would the immigrant
communities and employers they serve. Every year for the past
decade and a half, nonprofit
[[Page S12017]]
groups throughout the nation have received OSC grants to
educate workers about their rights to a workplace free of
discrimination and abuse. These groups have a vital role in
educating employers and the public about the civil rights and
immigration laws Congress has passed to protect U.S.
citizens, lawful permanent residents, refugees, and asylees.
Postponement of the OSC grant program will jeopardize the
public's knowledge of their rights, remedies, and
responsibilities.
Moreover, it is vital to OSC's mission to continue the
grant program. As stated in a June 30, 2004 letter from OSC
to intended grant recipients: ``Grantees play a major role in
accomplishing the mission of the Office of Special Counsel.''
OSC cannot be as effective if the public does not know about
its existence and its role in combating national origin and
citizenship discrimination, as well as document abuse and
retaliation.
Please respond to our concerns as soon as possible.
Sincerely,
Dick Durbin,
United States Senator.
Patrick Leahy,
United States Senator.
Ted Kennedy
United States Senator.
U.S. Department of Justice,
Civil Rights Division,
July 15, 2004.
Justice Department Announces Grants for Training on the Prevention of
Immigration-Related Employment Discrimination
Washington, DC.--The Justice Department today announced the
award of $745,000 in grants to 13 nonprofit groups throughout
the country for the purpose of conducting public education
programs for workers and employers on the topic of
immigration-related job discrimination.
The grants, which range from $35,000 to $80,000, are being
awarded by the Office of Special Counsel for Immigration-
Related Unfair Employment Practices (OSC) of the Civil Rights
Division. Recipients will assist discrimination victims;
conduct seminars for workers, employers and immigration
service providers; distribute educational materials in
various languages; and place advertisements in local
communities through both mainstream and ethnic media.
The grant recipients are: Asian Pacific American Legal
Center of Southern California in partnership with the Asian
Law Caucus, Central American Resource Center (CARECEN), James
Madison University, Catholic Charities of St. Petersburg,
Florida, Heartland Alliance for Human Needs and Human Rights,
in partnership with the Chicago Interfaith Committee on
Workers Issues, New York City Commission on Human Rights, in
partnership with the New York Immigration Coalition, Legal
Aid Society of Mid-New York, Legal Aid Services of Oregon, in
partnership with the Oregon Legal Center, Catholic Charities
of Dallas, Catholic Charities of Houston, Arab Community
Center for Economic and Social Services (ACCESS), AFL-CIO
Working for America Institute, National Immigration Legal
Support Center.
For more information about protections against employment
discrimination based upon citizenship, immigration status,
and national origin: call the Office of Special Counsel toll-
free at 1-800-255-8155 (employers), 1-800-362-2735 (TDD for
hearing impaired); 1-800-255-7688 (workers), 1-800-237-2515
(TDD for hearing impaired); visit the Office of Special
Counsel's web site at www.usdoj.gov/crt/osc; or write to:
Office of Special Counsel for Immigration, Related Unfair
Employment Practices, Civil Rights Division, U.S. Department
of Justice, 950 Pennsylvania Ave. NW, Washington, DC 20038-
7728.
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