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Initiative campaign mirrors U.S. trend

Sunday, May 7, 2006
By KATHIE DURBIN , Columbian staff writer Advertisement


The initiative campaign to deny state benefits to Washington's illegal immigrants is part of a national effort to enforce the nation's immigration laws by making it tougher for undocumented workers to find jobs and survive in the U.S.

Under the banner "Protect America Now," several states, including Colorado, have similar initiative campaigns under way. Arizona voters became the first to approve an initiative to deny state benefits to illegal immigrants in 2004. Arizona's Initiative 200 also requires proof of citizenship to vote in local elections.

Washington Initiative 946 sponsor Robert Baker, a pilot for Alaska Airlines, said the measure is part of a strategy of "enforcement by attrition" designed to discourage illegal immigrants from entering the United States.

"We have to get a fence up on the border; states must do as much as they can to take away incentives for illegals to come here; and we must go after the employers who hire illegals," said Baker, a resident of Mercer Island. He said he also supports citizen patrols of the U.S.-Canada border like those being conducted by Minutemen on the Mexican border.

"We wouldn't be having this discussion right now if the federal government was doing its job," he said. "They're not. They're not securing the border."

An estimated 200,000 illegal immigrants live in Washington state, according to the Pew Hispanic Center, a nonprofit research organization.

Meanwhile, a coalition including the American Civil Liberties Union, the Washington Association of Churches, the Washington State Hospitals Association, Service Employees International Union 775 and the Northwest Immigrant Rights Project is gearing up to fight the measure if it makes it onto the November ballot. Sponsors need to gather close to 250,000 signatures by July 7 to qualify it for the ballot.

"This measure is a punitive measure that is an attack on children and will disrupt health services in the state of Washington," said anti-initiative campaign chairman Michael Ramos of the Church Council of Greater Seattle. "The different faith communities, labor, business and agricultural interests in the state are going to oppose this initiative as an imported measure that has no place in the state of Washington."

"We need reform, obviously," said the Rev. Armando Perez, pastor of St. John the Evangelist Catholic Church in Vancouver. "We have to do something about our laws. The question is how to make them more just for everybody."

I-946 would require both state and local government employees to verify the identity and immigration status of every person who applies for a public benefit that is not federally required. The measure would not affect federally mandated services to those living in this country illegally, including K-12 education and emergency medical care.

State and federal laws prohibit providing undocumented immigrants with ongoing food or cash assistance. In Washington, however, they are eligible for a range of social and health services.

The initiative would also require public employees to report immigration violations in writing and make failure to report those violations a misdemeanor.

That's a concern to public employee unions, as well as to doctors and nurses who work in the state's two public hospitals and 53 public hospital districts. They could find themselves being required to enforce the nation's immigration laws while they try to deliver medical care, said Cassie Sauer, spokeswoman for the Washington State Hospitals Association.

"The way we read it, some of the benefits hospitals provide, like immunizations, free prenatal care, mammograms, even charity care, could be considered public benefits if they are provided by a public hospital," she said. Initiative 946 "could put doctors and nurses in the position of verifying the citizenship of any patient who comes in to receive a free or subsidized service. It basically turns doctors and nurses into border patrol agencies."

Hospitals also are concerned about the impact on public health if illegal immigrants fail to seek medical treatment for communicable diseases like tuberculosis because of fear that they will be deported, Sauer said. "You don't want to have people walking around spreading things."'

Measure called hurtful

The coalition opposing Initiative 946 intends to focus on a simple message: This measure will punish children. Opponents point out that seven state health and social service programs that would be closed to illegal immigrants serve children or pregnant women.

"You are hurting people at the most basic level," said Leno Rose-Avila of the Seattle-based Northwest Immigrant Rights Project. "Most immigrants pay taxes, pay into Social Security and never collect benefits. This is a misguided attempt to mislead the people of Washington. Washington is much better than this initiative."

Baker said the goal of the campaign is not to punish those who are in this country illegally but to require them to follow the same path to citizenship that immigrants have taken for 200 years.

"We want them to follow the law," he said. "Millions of people have come to our country legally. They have the same opportunities we do to prosper and to flourish in our country. Unfortunately, what we have done, although I don't think it was the intent, is create an underclass of people. They are not learning English, they are not assimilating into our society, therefore they don't have the same opportunities. What I want is for them to all become good Americans."

Initiative 946 also is about letting a free-market economy work, Baker said. "If employers paid people a decent wage, there would be Americans who would do the work. A free-market economy depends on supply and demand. If these businesses (that employ illegal immigrants) had to compete with businesses that do it right, they would be paying these people a living wage. The taxpayers of Washington are subsidizing the businesses that don't pay a living wage."

Opponents say the measure does not address the long-term best interests of Washington residents or the state's economy, including the agricultural industry, which relies on undocumented farm workers to get Washington crops to market.

Dean Boyer, spokesman for the Washington Farm Bureau, said his organization has taken no position on the initiative, which has not yet been presented to its board of directors.

"Many groups wait to see what is on the ballot before they take positions," Ramos said. "But the agricultural community has indicated on a number of occasions that what we need is comprehensive immigration reform that creates pathways to citizenship, allows families to be reunified, and respects the basic civil rights of hard-working, tax-paying immigrants."

The majority of the American public appears to agree. According to an April 11 Washington Post-ABC News poll, 63 percent of Americans support a plan backed by President Bush and U.S. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., that would allow illegal immigrants who have lived here for many years to apply for legal status and eventually become permanent citizens if they pay a fine and back taxes. Just 20 percent of those polled said they favor declaring all illegal immigrants felons and forbidding them to work here legally, as a bill that passed the House in December would do.

The immigration issue requires people to move past their narrow views of the world and get in touch with the most basic human values, said the Rev. Perez, whose church is the only one in Clark County that ministers to Latinos. Perez said he baptizes about 100 Spanish-speaking children each year and holds Mass in Spanish.

"Obviously, many that come here are illegal," he said. "We get caught up in our governments, our means of control. We have created these borders, we have created this nationalism. Someone has to be the bad guy, and right now it's the illegal immigrants. The defenseless, the one who has no rights, no control, is the enemy. It's absurd."

"There is an argument that if we give too much, we lose," Perez said. "But it's the opposite. We want life to be better for our children. We're all called to sacrifice, even for the illegal immigrants."