Thread: MA-Immigration crackdown rejected

Immigration crackdown rejected
By Matt Murphy, mmurphy@lowellsun.com
Posted: 04/30/2010 06:32:20 AM EDT


BOSTON -- A razor-thin vote margin in the House to block a crackdown on illegal immigrants receiving state benefits underscored a shifting view toward immigration in the Legislature as nervous politicians prepare to face voters frustrated by government waste.

The House voted 82-75 to kill an amendment to the budget on Wednesday that would have required state departments providing taxpayer-funded benefits to check applicants' immigration status with federal authorities. The vote came as a controversial new immigration law in Arizona is drawing attention from around the country, igniting a renewed debate around the need for federal immigration reform.

The amendment was filed by state Rep. Jeff Perry, a Republican from Sandwich who is running for U.S. Congress. The bill, which won considerable Democratic support, mirrored a similar proposal filed last year that was defeated by a much larger margin, 118-40.

"That's a sign of the times, and my colleagues are seeing this," said Rep. David Nangle, D-Lowell.

With the exception of Rep. Jennifer Benson, D-Lunenburg, local lawmakers from North Central Massachusetts supported the amendment. Reps. Stephen DiNatale, D-Fitchburg, Dennis Rosa, D-Leominster, Robert Rice, D-Gardner, and Lewis Evangelidis, R-Holden, all resisted the effort to banish the bill to a study committee.

"I supported it a year ago, and I support it now. It simply adheres to the rule of law and makes sense. If you are here illegally, you

should not be benefiting from taxpayer dollars," DiNatale said.
The Fitchburg Democrat also voted against sending the bill to study in 2009.

It is estimated that 190,000 illegal immigrants live in Massachusetts, though supporters of the bill said they could not detail how many of them receive state benefits. Critics of the legislation pointed to the cost of requiring state agencies to verify every benefits applicants' immigration status through the Department of Homeland Security. Each background check would cost $6, Perry said.

"Without this study, the amendment represents an unfunded mandate with large costs to our towns and the commonwealth in the form of information technology costs, administrative costs, and bureaucratic red tape, which could overwhelm any potential taxpayer savings," Benson said.

Her vote to block the legislation, however, drew an immediate response from her Republican challenger Kurt Hayes in this fall's election

"This is the kind of Beacon Hill spin that voters are fed up with," Hayes said. "There are tremendous savings to be realized by the state, cities, and towns if we ensure that taxpayer-funded benefits go only to those here legally. The budget savings would help the state avoid further cuts in local aid."

Hayes said Democrats took the same step last year to kill the bill, but produced no study on the impact of changing the law.

"It is simply wrong to take money from the wallets of hard-working, law-abiding families and hand it to those here illegally," he said.

The House, as it did in 2009, voted to send Perry's amendment to a committee for further study, essentially killing the bill for this year. Those who voted "no" against sending the bill to study largely support the underlying amendment.

"We were supposed to study it last year and that didn't happen," said Rep. Thomas Golden, D-Lowell, who changed his vote. "Where we have the tight fiscal dollars we have today, we need to be reserving any and all dollars for Massachusetts residents."

Golden said the problem even goes beyond illegal immigrants.

"What about people coming from New Hampshire and getting Medicaid benefits," Golden said.

Despite being dead for now, the question of illegal immigrants qualifying for state benefits could trickle over to the race for governor where two of the three major candidates supported Perry's amendment.

Republican Charlie Baker and Treasurer Tim Cahill both issued statements supporting the tougher state law, while Gov. Deval Patrick admitted the state could do a better job of making sure it only provides services to legal residents of Massachusetts.

"When the state is facing enormous deficits and hiking taxes at prodigious rates, guaranteeing that only legal citizens have access to state services should have been a no-brainer," Baker said in a statement yesterday.

Baker promised to implement the change through executive order if necessary should he be elected governor in the fall.


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With illegal aliens looking at other states to occupy, states had better act quickly.

Revelation 3:20 (New International Version)
It is written,... Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him, and he with me.