Thread: ID:Our View:It's not the time for immigration bills in Idaho

Our View: It's not the time for immigration bills in Idaho
ADDITIONAL INFORMATION


OUR VIEW

IMMIGRATION
- Idaho Statesman
Edition Date: 12/16/08

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If nothing else, the 2009 Legislature at least will be flush with problems.

Lawmakers should be fully focused on the issues under their control - dropping state tax revenues, a sputtering state economy, a deteriorating road system. They can ill afford to dabble in other big issues beyond their control.

Unfortunately, two North Idaho legislators seem determined to recycle an ill-conceived anti-immigration bill, a fatally patch-and-scratch approach to a problem that needs to be solved at the federal level.

Sen. Michael Jorgenson, R-Hayden Lake, and Rep. Phil Hart, R-Athol, will try again with a bill that could suspend or revoke the business license of any employer who knowingly hires illegal aliens.

In arguing for his bill in a recent Coeur d'Alene Press article, Jorgenson actually exposes one of its weaknesses. "The state's only recourse to curb illegal immigration is enforcement through employers."

Bingo. The state cannot possibly address the other factors that contribute to a dysfunctional immigration system. Only the federal government can set up a security system that keeps people from crossing the border illegally, address the status and the fate of the estimated 12 million people in America illegally, and set up a guest worker system that ensures employers can find the laborers they need.

That latter point is crucial to employers, even in a recession that continues to drive up the state's unemployment rate. It is unrealistic and unfair to burden farmers and employers with the administrative headache of enforcing federal immigration law, without providing these employers a guest worker system.

That's one good reason why lawmakers have rejected this legislation two years running. Here's another: Idaho consumers will wind up paying the costs.

Idaho Farm Bureau Federation spokesman John Thompson stopped short of taking a position on the latest bill. But he also told the Coeur d'Alene Press that growers would have no choice but to raise their prices on commodities.

If all Idaho lawmakers can do is address part of a complicated problem, and force their struggling constituents to pay more at the supermarket checkstand, then lawmakers really are better off doing nothing.

This bill is borne out of a frustration with the feds - and as far as that goes, we're on the same side as Jorgenson and Hart.

President Bush will leave office next month with the nation's immigration system still a mess, and Congress certainly deserves its share of the blame. With the candidates consumed by other economic wildfires, immigration became a nonissue in the presidential campaign. This doesn't suggest much of a sense of urgency, but it's still up to President-elect Obama and his Cabinet nominees to address the problem (and in Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano, his homeland security secretary nominee, Obama has at least one Cabinet member well acquainted with the immigration problem and its effects on the states).

While they wait, Idaho lawmakers have plenty of other things to do.

"Our View" is the editorial position of the Idaho Statesman. It is an unsigned opinion expressing the consensus of the Statesman's editorial board. To comment on an editorial or suggest a topic, e-mail editorial@idahostatesman.com.
http://www.idahostatesman.com/126/story/605285.html

That latter point is crucial to employers, even in a recession that continues to drive up the state's unemployment rate. It is unrealistic and unfair to burden farmers and employers with the administrative headache of enforcing federal immigration law, without providing these employers a guest worker system.

That's one good reason why lawmakers have rejected this legislation two years running. Here's another: Idaho consumers will wind up paying the costs.

Idaho consumers are already paying the costs, duh!

We don't need "guest workers" aka slaves during a recession with millions of American already out of work, DUH!

How does this paper stay in business? I mean, really.

Idaho Farm Bureau Federation spokesman John Thompson stopped short of taking a position on the latest bill. But he also told the Coeur d'Alene Press that growers would have no choice but to raise their prices on commodities.

If all Idaho lawmakers can do is address part of a complicated problem, and force their struggling constituents to pay more at the supermarket checkstand, then lawmakers really are better off doing nothing.

In other words, we should be allowed to ignore the law because if you cut off our farmers access to cheap, illegal invader labor, we will raise the price of produce to the end consumer, that being American citizens.

More threats....

Well, it will be interesting to see if they allow my comments to remain at the end of that article. The idiot who wrote the article doesn't even have the guts to put their name on it. Precious.

I just talked to Senator Jorgensen on the phone and he tells me that he is getting a lot of emails and phone calls on this, with the majority of them supportive of this bill. But he says if this bill doesn't pass, he's going to organize people to make it an initiative for the next election.