U.S . senator Dianne Feinstein recently came out in favor of a bill that attacks immigrants and U.S. citizens under the guise of "national security." The Real ID Act of 2005 (H.R. 418) recently passed the House of Representatives, and in the next few weeks, we must stop Feinstein and other senators from voting to pass it.

The Real ID Act proposes four main things: (1) to make it almost impossible for someone to qualify for political asylum by requiring asylum seekers to obtain "written corroboration," such as police reports, from the very governments they are fleeing; (2) to expand the USA PATRIOT Act by allowing deportations of lawful permanent residents for providing nonviolent, humanitarian support to organizations the government labels as "terrorist" – even when such support was completely legal at the time it was provided; (3) to devote additional federal dollars to build more fences along the U.S.-Mexico border; and (4) to require states to identify undocumented immigrants when they apply for driver's licenses and state IDs – and to deny them these documents.

Passage of the Real ID Act would have a devastating impact on undocumented immigrants – as well as legal residents, and even citizens. The asylum-related provisions of the Real ID Act would prohibit many individuals fleeing persecution from obtaining safe haven in the United States. This section of the bill is not about preventing "terrorists" from getting asylum; "terrorists" are already barred from receiving asylum. This section would allow political refugees to be denied asylum if they cannot prove their persecutor's central motive for harming them. This is an almost impossible requirement to meet, and thousands of people each year will be forced to return to torture, prison, and death in their home countries.

Legal residents and undocumented immigrants will be inhibited from participating in political activities, or with political organizations, for fear of deportation.

Building more fences on the U.S.-Mexico border of course has never reduced undocumented migration. It simply increases the level of suffering and the number of deaths.

Finally, immigrants living in this country, regardless of immigration status, have a basic need to possess an official ID in order to conduct basic, daily activities, such as cashing checks, entering government buildings, and avoiding unnecessary arrests by local police. Immigrants, regardless of their immigration status, have to drive to get to work, to take their kids to school, etc. It's safer for everyone when they are required to pass state license requirements and are able to obtain insurance. And because state Department of Motor Vehicles employees are not trained in federal immigration law, they are likely to rely on ethnic and racial profiling and deny IDs and licenses to people who look or sound "foreign."

Proponents of the Real ID Act argue that all these likely civil and human rights violations are outweighed by the need for national security. Who are they trying to fool? Banning driver's licenses to immigrants would not have prevented 9/11, because those involved all possessed other valid documents, including passports from their home countries.

It is not too surprising that Feinstein has come out supporting the Real ID Act. She has supported anti-immigrant proposals in the past. But immigrant communities are forming coalitions to pressure her to vote against the act, and they have already held successful actions at her office and at her San Francisco home.

Rather than deny human beings access to basic civil and human rights, this country must acknowledge, and change, its role in causing migration. It must also stabilize people's ability to live and work in this country by passing a broad legalization program that would legalize millions of people and bring them out from the underground. Please call Feinstein at (415) 393-0707 to remind her of this.

Renee Saucedo is a human rights attorney and organizer with La Raza Centro Legal and the San Francisco Day Labor Program.