Congressman Mike Simpson announced that he is an original cosponsor of the Charlie Norwood CLEAR Act of 2007 today. This legislation is designed to implement an efficient system of identifying and removing violent criminal illegal immigrants, while denying specific federal funding to American "Sanctuary Cities" that protect them. 
 
The Charlie Norwood CLEAR Act of 2007 (H.R. 3494) would provide training, critical information sharing improvements, and funding to local police in order to practically enforce current immigration law. These new resources would allow local law enforcement to identify and detain the more than 400,000 alien absconders currently in the United States, 85,000 of which possess criminal records.
 
This legislation also targets cities such as San Francisco, Houston, and New York, which have enacted laws that shield illegal immigrants from federal immigration law. Under this legislation, sanctuary cities would lose federal funding to the State Criminal Alien Assistance Program (SCAPP), unless local governments rescind the policies that prohibit local law enforcement officials from working with the Department of Homeland Security.

“It is vital that we are tough on criminals, especially these violent criminal illegal aliens who bring drugs, gangs and perform despicable acts in our communities,” said Simpson. “This legislation not only helps law enforcement get these thugs off the street, but it sends a strong financial message to the cities that essentially provide these criminals sanctuary.”

The CLEAR Act would enact several common sense immigration measures including:

• Affirms that state and local law enforcement officials already have existing authority to assist in enforcing immigration law during the course of routine duty.
• Denies SCAAP (State Criminal Alien Assistance Program) funding to "sanctuary cities" that refuse to assist with immigration enforcement. By acting as a sanctuary for illegals and preventing city officials from working with DHS, these local governments encourage illegal immigrants to break the law.
• Requires DHS to provide the National Crime Information Center (NCIC) all info on aliens who: have a final order of removal, have signed a voluntary departure agreement, overstayed their visa length, or have had their visa revoked.
• Authorizes local authorities to procure equipment, facilities to assist in the enforcement of immigration law.
• Authorizes additional construction for detention space.
• Requires DHS to take an alien into custody within 48 hours.