Immigration bill's cost not known
SPONSOR SAYS U.S. WOULD HELP FUNDING

By John Cheves
JCHEVES@HERALD-LEADER.COM

FRANKFORT --The sponsor of a tough immigration crackdown bill told state lawmakers on Wednesday that he doesn't know how much his proposal would cost local and state agencies. But, given the mood in Washington, he expects the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to be a ready source of funds.

"If there is a place that has money in the budget anywhere coming from the federal government ... it's in that agency," said Rep. Bob Damron, D-Nicholasville.

The House Judiciary Committee held the first of about a half-dozen planned hearings to discuss Damron's House Bill 304. No vote is scheduled.

Under the bill, illegal immigrants with false personal documents could be prosecuted on felony identity theft charges; their employers could be stripped of business licenses; and local governments, jails and prosecutors would be required to enforce federal immigration law.

Committee members expressed concern for the cost of these new duties at a time of sweeping state budget cuts. Jails, for example, many of which are overcrowded and losing money, would have to screen incoming inmates for citizenship or immigration status and hold illegal immigrants for federal authorities -- who might not respond promptly, or at all, lawmakers said.

Damron said he assumed most expenses would be negligible, but he had no fiscal impact data.

Rep. Robin Webb, D-Grayson, said she worries that Hispanics in general might be targeted by police on suspicion of being illegal immigrants. Damron said law-enforcement would review criminal suspects only at the jails.

"We're not going down the street and checking the rooms of the apartment houses to say, 'Are you an illegal alien? If so, we're gonna come down with the SWAT team.' That's not what this bill does," Damron said.

Later, two Central Kentucky residents told the committee that it must act soon to discourage more illegal immigrants from coming to the state in search of jobs.

Joan Rich, 62, said she moved to Woodford County from Lexington several years ago to escape the city's influx of Hispanic immigrants, many of whom arrive illegally, carry diseases, drive drunk and drain the welfare system, she said. The thoroughbred horse industry, in which Rich works, has pushed aside American laborers in favor of illegal immigrants who do a shabbier job for cheaper wages, she said.

"Believe me, it's an invasion, folks," Rich told the panel. "Here's how it works: You come here, you get on every welfare and supplemental program you can, and then the money you make, you send back to your home country because the American taxpayers are paying for you to stay here."

http://www.kentucky.com/news/state/story/295908.html