100 bills against illegals are filed
Supporters of immigration bills visit Capitol

Date published: 1/22/2008
By Chelyen Davis

RICHMOND--With at least 100 bills dealing with illegal immigration having been filed, citizen supporters of those bills gathered here yesterday to push lawmakers for their support.

Save the Old Dominion, an umbrella organization of local anti-illegal immigration groups--like Save Stafford --lobbied lawmakers to support legislation that either further restricts the activities of illegal immigrants, or further empowers the state to deal with them.

Examples include bills that would require employers to run the Social Security number of every job applicant through a federal database; bills to bar illegal immigrants from receiving in-state tuition at colleges; and bills to expand the authority of police to detain illegal immigrants who commit crimes.

Similar bills were introduced last year , but, as former Del. Jack Reid pointed out at a news conference, while those bills usually pass the House, they died last year in the Senate.

"People of Virginia are tired and do not understand how this country is allowing people to pick and choose which laws they want to obey," Reid said.

Sen. Ken Cuccinelli, R-Fairfax, a proponent of many of the anti-illegal immigrant bills, said he's introducing one more: a resolution asking Congress for a constitutional convention to change the 14th Amendment. That's the one pertaining to citizenship; Cuccinelli wants to remove the part that provides citizenship for anyone born in the United States, and require instead that at least one parent be a citizen before a baby is a citizen.

"You ought to have at least that," Cuccinelli said.

He and Reid both made it a point to say their opposition to illegal immigration isn't about racism or hatred, it's about obeying the law. Cuccinelli said a respect for the law and the traditions of the United States is what binds together a nation of people who are, in some way, immigrants themselves.


"We're not a people, we're not a tribe," Cuccinelli said. "We're held together by a set of principles that are all bound up in the rule of law. I view a lot of this legislation as just pure common sense."

Most of the legislation proposed hasn't gone far yet through the legislative process. On the House side, many of the immigration bills have been sent to the House Rules committee--an unusual place for them, which has Democrats claiming Republicans are seeking to force a vote on them in the full House by taking advantage of a new rule allowing bills to go to the full House without a committee's approval.

Bills that deal with the crime-and-punishment side of illegal immigration may stand a better chance than others, simply because the Crime Commission has been studying that aspect of the illegal immigration issue for the past year and has recommended some of the bills.

Save the Old Dominion leader Greg Letiecq said he doesn't think the Democrats' control of the Senate should affect the immigration bills' chances there, because Democrats have put in some of the bills his group is supporting.

For example, Sen. Chuck Colgan, D-Manassas, introduced the bill requiring employers to check the Social Security number of potential employees through a federal "E-verify" system. Yesterday the Senate Commerce and Labor committee referred that bill to the Courts of Justice Committee.

Chelyen Davis: 804/782-9362
Email: cdavis@freelancestar.com


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