Ariz. House postpones vote on immigration bill

Ariz. House postpones vote on immigration bill
By JACQUES BILLEAUD | Posted: Wednesday, March 17, 2010 4:47 pm

The Arizona House postponed a vote Wednesday on a bill that would criminalize the presence of illegal border-crossers in the state and ban soft immigration policies in police agencies.

The proposal would make Arizona the only state to criminalize the presence of the state's estimated 460,000 illegal immigrants through an expansion of its trespassing law.

It would prohibit police departments from having policies that restrict the enforcement of federal immigration law and require officers to try to determine people's immigration status when there's reasonable suspicion they are in the country illegally.

A similar bill cleared the Senate in February.

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On the Net:

Arizona Legislature: http://www.azleg.gov/



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Pearce immigration bill shelved at last minute
by Jim Walsh and Alia Beard Rau - Mar. 18, 2010 12:00 AM

Mesa Republican Sen. Russell Pearce and his efforts to toughen immigration enforcement took a beating in the Legislature on Wednesday.

A comprehensive immigration-reform bill that Pearce has been working on for years was expected by some to hit the governor's desk today. Instead, it was pulled from the House Committee of the Whole agenda at the last minute on Wednesday at the request of some concerned Republicans.


Senate Bill 1070 already has been approved by the Senate. It would, among other things, require law enforcement to try to determine the immigration status of an individual whenever there is reasonable suspicion about that status, allow an illegal immigrant found in Arizona to be charged with trespassing and make it illegal to pick up or be picked up as a day laborer.

Rep. David Gowan, R-Sierra Vista, the sponsor of the House version of the bill, House Bill 2632, was the one who pulled it.

"We just had some issues within the (Republican) caucus," Gowan said, adding that he needed to find out more about what those issues were.

"I need to see how I can soothe some feathers."

He said he hopes he and Pearce can address concerns and get the measure back before the House as soon as possible.

"But I want to make sure I'm very solid before I bring this thing back forward," Gowan said.

Speaker of the House Kirk Adams, R-Mesa, said concerns about some "very specific language in the bill" arose at the last minute. He also said he didn't know the details of those concerns.

"It may have just been some misunderstandings," he said.

Earlier in the day, Pearce butted heads with Rep. Daniel Patterson, D-Tucson, during a House Military Affairs and Public Safety Committee hearing on a Pearce bill that would use seismic sensors to track human and drug smuggling at rural runways.

Patterson accused Pearce of pursuing special-interest legislation based on unproven technology and on behalf of Florida-based Quantum Technology Sciences Inc. He said similar sensors have been tripped by rabbits and other animals, sending off false alarms.

"Your approach to immigration policy has failed for years," Patterson told Pearce, after accusing him of refusing to answer questions about Senate Bill 1027. "I can assume you don't have the answers or just make them up."

During his testimony, Pearce said there had been 69 murders along the border in recent days over drug trafficking.

"The drug trafficking and violence along the border ought to scare every American," Pearce said.

The bill passed the committee with a 5-2 vote. It now moves to the House Committee of the Whole.


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