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Illegal immigrant bills fill legislatures, cloud issues

By TOM BAXTER
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 02/20/06
So many bills dealing with illegal immigration are being introduced in state legislatures this year, advocates on all sides of the issue report having a hard time keeping tabs.

It also can be hard to track who's on which side as states far from the Mexican border, including Georgia, Tennessee and Virginia, struggle to cope with an influx of undocumented workers. Virginia state Sen. Emmett W. Hanger Jr., a Republican whose district spans part of the Shenandoah Valley, learned that lesson last week.

A critic of federal immigration policy, Hanger has worked with groups such as the Federation for American Immigration Reform on bills like the one he introduced this year that would ban children of illegal immigrants from qualifying for in-state tuition rates at Virginia's colleges and universities.

But his allies quickly became critics, Hanger said, when he amended his bill to allow an exception for those who aren't "the type of immigrant that I'm concerned with."

Under his amendment, parents would have to have paid state taxes for at least three years and applied for U.S. citizenship before the students could qualify for cheaper tuition.

His corrective measure drew attacks from those who saw it as a reversal of course.

"I'm still going in the same direction. Some of my friends are wondering about me, I'm sure," Hanger said last week.

South fertile ground

With immigration issues, legislators find themselves, quite literally, making up new laws as they go along. And it's hard to read the issue politically: In some areas it's a white-hot subject; in others, more a nagging concern.

At the focal point are Arizona and New Mexico, whose Democratic governors, Janet Napolitano and Bill Richardson, last year declared a state of emergency on their Mexican border areas.

But the Southeast — which saw the nation's largest percentage growth in Hispanic population from 1990 to 2000, most of it immigrants — also has been fertile ground for new legislation.

More than 40 bills have been proposed in the Virginia Legislature since January, and every Southern state has considered legislation during the past year, said Julia Kirchner, the Federation for American Immigration Reform's deputy director for government relations.

John Keeley, communications director for the Center for Immigration Studies, which favors reduced immigration levels and a greater effort to integrate immigrants into the mainstream, traces the trend to the region's population shift.

"I think the Southeastern states, because of the immigration numbers, that have just skyrocketed since the 1990 census, are grappling with these issues simply because they can no longer wait for Washington to act," he said.

Even states on the Canadian border, however, are getting into the act.

Last month, Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, a Republican, announced the creation of a state enforcement team to crack down on illegal immigrants, and he called for stiffer penalties for trafficking in false identity documents.

The broadest category of bills bar illegal immigrants from state benefits, such as Hanger's bill and legislation introduced in Georgia by Sen. Chip Rogers (R-Woodstock).

Other bills target employers, imposing fines or banning businesses that employ illegal immigrants from state contracts.

Some, like a high-profile measure in New Hampshire, direct state police to take a greater role in apprehending illegal immigrants.

Among the newest innovations are bills that target illegal immigrants' paychecks.

Several immigration experts said last week that a bill authored by Rep. Tom Rice (R-Norcross) is the first they've seen that would impose a surcharge on wire transfers of money by those without proof of legal status.

A similar bill in Tennessee, authored by Sen. Bill Ketron (R-Murfreesboro), would require construction subcontractors to deduct state taxes from any wages they pay.

Most bills fail

Though Republicans have seized the initiative on illegal immigration in Virginia and Georgia, some Democrats are joining the fray.

Alabama state Rep. Randy Hinshaw, a Huntsville area Democrat, has introduced legislation to limit state services to illegal immigrants.

He said he expects his Republican rivals to introduce their own immigration bills later in the session.

"I think we caught them off guard. That rarely happens," said Hinshaw, whose home county has seen its Hispanic population jump since 2000.

Legislators introduce immigration bills, Hinshaw observed, "probably more for geographic than political reasons."

In other words, the pressure to do something about immigration comes from areas — from the small industrial towns of Alabama and Georgia to the booming suburbs of Atlanta and Nashville — that have been magnets for illegal workers.

Proponents of stricter immigration rules, such as Keeley and Kirchner, view the increase in legislation at the local and state level as a sign of rising public unrest over illegal immigration.

But proponents of a more open policy maintain key questions, such as whether there will be a formal guest worker system, still have to be resolved at the congressional level and that much of the state-level legislation is only symbolic.

A study by Tanya Broder of the National Immigration Law Center, a Los Angeles-based advocacy group for low-income immigrants, showed most of the bills restricting benefits to illegal immigrants that were introduced last year ultimately failed, often under pressure from medical workers, police or others who would have been expected to enforce the new rules.

'We've become a magnet'

While those who favor what Broder calls the "punitive approach" have been more vocal, she said there had been victories for those taking a "welcoming" approach.

She pointed to Washington state, which has restored health care benefits for children of illegal immigrants; Illinois, which is drafting a comprehensive health care plan; and Indiana, which rejected a measure similar to California's Proposition 187 that would have denied benefits to illegal immigrants.

In Tennessee, the tenor of legislation has shifted in recent years.

In 2001, legislators in Nashville voted to allow illegal immigrants to get driver's licenses without Social Security numbers.

But increased concerns after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks later that year and complaints about a black market in licenses led legislators to replace illegal immigrants' licenses with certificates.

Now, Ketron said, he's introduced legislation to get rid of the certificates, and his measure has gained support since a high-profile federal bust of a black market tag and license operation.

Ketron said he had received letters from legislators in Virginia complaining about an increase in accidents involving illegal immigrants with Tennessee tags.

"If we can't plug the holes with the driver's certificates, we going to have to stop them," he said.

"Obviously, we've become a magnet."