Legislators focus on immigration despite distance from border friction

John Hult
November 28, 2010

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South Dakota lawmakers Craig Tieszen and Manny Steele plan to work on an Arizona-style bill to criminalize immigration-related offenses on the state level.

Tieszen, who joined the Legislature in 2009 after retiring as Rapid City police chief, said: "The (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) people we have in this state are good people, but they're being directed by the ineffective policies of the federal government."

During the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally, he said, a dozen ICE officers patrolled the city looking for counterfeit merchandise. Tieszen said those officers should be working immigration cases.

"If they're short of resources, tell me what they're doing in Sturgis?" he said.

Shawn Neudauer, ICE spokesman, would not say how many ICE officers work immigration cases.

Employers exempted
Steele's draft legislation has three sections: transportation, concealment and solicitation. The Sioux Falls state senator wants to make it a crime to give a ride or a home to someone known to be in the country illegally, which he sees as a way to punish those who help migrant workers get to and stay at a South Dakota job site.

A portion of the law would make it a state crime for an illegal immigrant to ask for a job. Punishing employers would be unfair, he said.
"Most employers don't have the training - what's a legal or an illegal immigration document," Steele said.

All of those provisions already are a part of federal law, Steele said. He would add profiling to the proposal "if I could get away with it," but he doesn't want to draw an expensive legal challenge.

Arizona's law, which faces a federal legal challenge that won't be resolved before the next legislative session is complete in South Dakota, allows local officers to ask for documentation of people they suspect of illegal status.

"We're trying to force the federal government to do their job, but I'm not interested in throwing $100,000 out the window at the ACLU," Steele said.

Hot issue with voters
Freshman state Rep. Lora Hubbel, R-Sioux Falls, said the issue of illegal immigration came up repeatedly during her door-to-door campaign visits, and she intends to support tougher state immigration laws.

Many voters, she said, think the way she does - that the state should have more authority to enforce immigration statutes.

"The voters don't care about the same things (the local media) care about," Hubbel said. "They don't care about school budgets. They're concerned about the federal government taking their rights away."

The state cannot force the federal government to deport anyone, however. Steele, Hubbel and Tieszen acknowledge that a South Dakota law, in large part, is as about making a statement.

Attorney General Marty Jackley is working with legislators to fashion a legally defensible and financially sound immigration statute.
He said he heard consternation from voters about immigration during his re-election campaign, as well, but Jackley has concerns about using state resources.

If ICE doesn't deport a migrant worker who breaks state law by asking for a job, Jackley said, the offender shouldn't end up in a taxpayer-subsidized jail for months.
"We just don't have the ability as a state to enforce federal immigration law," he said. "Certainly, there are financial considerations involved in whatever legislation is passed."

Not a matter for states
Juan Bonilla of the Hispanic Association of Sioux Falls should continue to trump state law on immigration.

Bonilla said he supports immigration reform and federal efforts to deport criminal aliens, but a patchwork of state laws would add to confusion and fear in the immigrant community.
"If you have 50 laws for 50 states, I don't think it will work out very well," he said.

Bonilla said he thinks a path to citizenship is a more reasonable way to deal with noncriminal immigration.

"The great majority of the people who come over here do so to work, and they work hard," he said. "I don't see what the purpose is of this discrimination against Latinos."
He also notes that South Dakota ranks in the bottom five of all states in per-capita Hispanic population. The state also doesn't see the sort of drug and gang violence found in border states.

"I don't see that we have a security problem here," Bonilla said.
The effect of a transportation clause on domestic violence victims is a concern of freshman state Sen. Angie Buhl, D-Sioux Falls. Buhl volunteers with domestic violence victims and said she doesn't think those who would drive immigrant victims to a shelter deserve to be treated as criminals.

Buhl said immigrant victims already are frightened about reporting crimes, and further legislation would widen the gulf between native and foreign populations.

"It creates a presumption that some people are not white enough for America, which runs counter to our values," Buhl said.

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