congressional_record: CREC-2004-12-08-pt1-PgS12015
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| CREC-2004-12-08-pt1-PgS12015 | 2004-12-08 | 108 | 2 | NOMINATION OF WILLIAM SANCHEZ (Executive Session) | SENATE | SENATE | SNOMINATIONS | S12015 | S12017 | [{"name": "Richard J. Durbin", "role": "speaking"}] | 150 Cong. Rec. S12015 | Congressional Record, Volume 150 Issue 139 (Wednesday, December 8, 2004) [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 krupakar.revanna@usdoj.gov 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. ____________________ |