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Illegal immigration hot issue in legislatures nationwide
By TOM BAXTER
Cox News Service
Monday, February 20, 2006
ATLANTA — So many bills dealing with illegal immigration are being introduced in state legislatures this year that advocates on all sides of the issue report having a hard time keeping tabs.

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

A critic of federal immigration policy, Hanger has worked with groups such as the Federation for American Immigration Reform on bills such as 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, their 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," Hanger said last week. "Some of my friends are wondering about me, I'm sure."

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

At the center 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 also has been fertile ground for new legislation. The region saw the nation's largest percentage growth in Hispanic population from 1990 to 2000, most of it immigrants.

Some 40 bills have been dropped 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 is communications director for the Center for Immigration Studies, which favors reduced immigration levels and a greater effort to integrate immigrants into the mainstream. "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," Keeley said. .

Even places on the Canadian border, however, are getting into the act. Last month, for example, Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, a Republican, announced the creation of a state enforcement team to crack down on illegal immigrants, and called for stiffer penalties for marketing in false identity documents.

The broadest category of bills, however, are those that bar illegal immigrants from state benefits, such as Hanger's bill and legislation introduced in Georgia by state 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 this week that a bill authored by Georgia state 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 state Sen. Bill Ketron (R-Murfreesboro), would require construction subcontractors to deduct state taxes from awages they pay.

Though Republicans have seized the initiative on illegal immigration in Virginia and Georgia, some Democrats are joining the fray. State Rep. Randy Hinshaw, a Hunstville-area Democrat, has introduced legislation in Alabama that would limit state services to illegal immigrants. Hinshaw said he expects his Republican rivals plan to introduce their own immigration bills later in his state's legislative session.

"I think we caught them off guard; that rarely happens," said Hinshaw, whose home county has seen its Hispanic population nearly triple 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 a variety of areas - from the small industrial towns of northern 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 legislative activity at the local and state level as a sign of rising public unrest over illegal immigration.

But proponents of a more open policy maintain that the 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 has only symbolic importance.

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

While those who favor what she calls the "punitive approach" have been more vocal, Broder said, those who take a "welcoming" approach have had victories as well. 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.

But the trend of legislation has taken a different direction in Tennessee, which in turn reflects trends in the region, where the explosive growth in illegal immigrant population - now estimated at more than 200,000 in Georgia alone - has sparked concern about strains on schools and social services.

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 that year and complaints about a black market in licenses led the state to adopt a more restrictive certificate system.

Ketron said he has introduced legislation to get rid of that system and it has gained support since a high-profile federal bust of a black-market tag and license operation. He said he has received letters from legislators in Virginia complaining about the 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," Ketron said.

"Obviously, we've become a magnet."