http://www.qctimes.net/articles/2006/11 ... 120555.txt

Immigration still a hot issue for House race
By Ed Tibbetts | Friday, November 03, 2006

Immigration continues to be a hot button issue in Iowa’s 85th House District race, with both candidates running broadcast ads on the topic.

Republican Roby Smith, who is challenging State Rep. Jim Lykam, D-Davenport, has launched an ad that criticizes the incumbent for supporting a bill that would have granted in-state tuition at public universities to undocumented people so long as they have lived in Iowa three years prior to graduating from high school.

The bill passed 99-0 in the House in 2004, but it died in the Senate.

Some Republicans who voted for the measure have now called it a mistake. And Smith said Lykam’s support, as well as his co-sponsorship of the same measure in 2005, shows that he has a mistaken sense of loyalties.

“He’s representing illegal immigrants more than Iowans,” Smith said.

Lykam said the young people who would be helped by the measure were brought to the United States by their parents when they were just children and have lived in Iowa for years.

“They’re not going anywhere, why not have them be productive,” he asked.

Instead of paying international rates, the bill would allow them to be charged in-state tuition. Lykam added that all the Republican legislators in the Quad-City area also voted for the bill.

Lykam is running his own ad promoting a bill he supported that would penalize employers who hire illegal aliens and that would restrict access to housing for them. That bill passed the House but died in the Senate, too.

District 85 includes much of west Davenport. The election is Tuesday