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Sen. Brown & Tarr: Immigration debate
By Sen. Scott Brown & Sen. Bruce Tarr/ Guest Columnists
Thursday, July 20, 2006 - Updated: 10:53 AM EST

This year the recurring debate over our nation’s immigration policy has risen to new and dramatic levels. In the halls of Congress, in our neighborhoods and on our main streets, people are talking about how something needs to change.

Even though nothing has changed nationally, there are some important steps our state can take to address the situation, and we have offered them as legislation.

Naturally, the debate over immigration inspires intense debate. With the exception of Native Americans, we all share the common legacy of people who came to our country as immigrants. They sought opportunity and they helped build a great nation. We should continue to, and cannot afford not to, welcome new immigrants with open arms.

Yet those arms should not be open to those who enter our country illegally, circumventing the rules that are in place to preserve order, protect homeland security, protect worker health and safety, and contemplate economic fairness.

The focus of debate in many respects should be on those who violate the law, enter our country, and in many cases, utilize the government services and benefits that taxpayers provide as a duty of their own citizenship.

Here in the Massachusetts Legislature we are moving forward to combat this issue. During the fiscal year 2007 Senate budget debate, we co-sponsored three amendments regarding illegal aliens that take specific action here in the commonwealth independent of federal action.

These measures include preventing illegal aliens from living in state-subsidized housing, requiring judges to ask for a defendant’s immigration status during a hearing, and cracking down on employers who knowingly hire illegal aliens. All three Republican-led measures passed the Senate unanimously.

Recently, thousands of Massachusetts residents flooded the State House with phone calls and e-mails expressing their frustration with illegal immigration. It was evident more needed to be done. Accordingly, we filed "An Act to Promote Fair Employment and Security in the Commonwealth," legislation which outlines a more comprehensive set of state measures. If enacted this legislation will deal directly with these abuses and allow state government to take positive steps now, while the national debate surrounding immigration continues. Those steps include:

Requiring state government employers and contractors to verify the immigration status of employees through federal databases and authorizing penalties of up to $5,000 and imprisonment of up to five years for the use of false identification in obtaining employment with such companies;

Criminalizing the mass production of false identification documents;

Ensuring that no legally eligible applicant for public housing is displaced by an applicant not legally in the country;

Allowing both fair wage and immigration law violations to be reported to the attorney general for appropriate action;

Authorizing the attorney general to enter into an agreement to work cooperatively with federal immigration officials.

We need to address this issue from our courtrooms to public housing and the workplace. We need to require immigration status reports for any person incarcerated for a felony or driving under the influence, and for any defendant appearing before a trial court. Through common sense measures, we will prevent illegal aliens from taking jobs and housing away from Massachusetts taxpayers, disabled, elderly, veterans or those currently without homes, who have paid into the system for years. It is a matter of fairness.

We in the state Senate acted because the people spoke out loudly on this issue and demanded action from their leaders. We need to begin a dialogue now and lead the way for the nation.

Sen. Scott Brown, R-Wrentham, is the ranking Republican on the Committee on Health Care Financing, and Sen. Bruce Tarr, R-Gloucester, is the Minority Whip.





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