Thread: TN: Carr: Immigration bills a mandate from voters

Carr: Immigration bills a mandate from voters
Aim is to keep jobs, taxes out of hands of illegals
BY SCOTT BRODEN • SBRODEN@DNJ.COM • February 27, 2011

MURFREESBORO — State Rep. Joe Carr has spent the past year leading the efforts by the GOP-controlled Tennessee General Assembly to reduce illegal immigrants in the state.

The Lascassas Republican is the chairman for the House of Representatives Immigration Task Force. The position calls for him to sit before key committees to explain three bills he's sponsoring: Tennessee Lawful Employment Act; Eligibility Verification for Entitlement Act; and Lawful Immigration Enforcement Act.

Carr stopped by The Daily News Journal office in Murfreesboro this past week to discuss the legislation.

What does the Tennessee Lawful Employment Act do?

Carr: What that bill does is mandates all public or private employers to use the U.S. Department of Homeland Security E-Verify system to determine lawful presence in the United States. What it does is it matches a person's Social Security number with the name to ensure the name is assigned to that Social Security number. It does not cost the employers anything. This is a free service available to the employers across the United States. It's 97.4 percent accurate and generates a response usually within minutes and in the vast majority of cases less than 24 hours.

What kind of opposition have you faced with this mandate to use E-Verify system?

Carr: Yes, there has been push back. It's been from a couple of specific industries who have a history of hiring illegal immigrants in our community. Some of the industries we have been getting push back are the food service industry and the hotel/motel industries, and, to a more limited extent, the construction industry. But at the same time, there are proponents of the bill within the business community across all business segments who are having to compete with those businesses within their market who have an unfair financial competitive advantage as a result of hiring illegal immigrants.

Why aren't you focused on jobs, health care and education instead of illegal immigration?

Carr: In addition to being a legal issue, this is also a jobs, education and health care issue. According to the Pew Hispanic Center, there are 140,000 illegal immigrants in Tennessee. Approximately 25,000 of those are enrolled in K-12 schools. Another 110,000 are employed in the civilian (private sector) workforce. With a 9.4 percent unemployment rate and an underemployment rate double that in Tennessee, the question is, why are we allowing an illegal immigration population employment opportunities that lawfully and rightfully belong to the citizens of Tennessee?

If you hired a roofing contractor and discovered that three workers who showed up to rebuild the roof of your house only spoke Spanish, what would you do?

Carr:Within this bill, there is no statutory requirement on the part of the homeowner. It's the contractor's responsibility to E-Verify his employees. If you're a homeowner and you're suspicious, you have a right to ask the contractor to provide evidence he is complying with the E-Verify law. Your responsibility is to then hire them or not hire them. If you're a homeowner and you're suspicious a contractor is not complying with the law, you file a complaint with the Tennessee Department of Labor.

What will the Eligibility Verification for Entitlement Act do?

Carr: It stipulates that any state political agency that disburses or administers disbursement of taxpayer funds must determine the legal status or lawful status of anyone receiving those funds. Currently in the state of Tennessee, it is estimated that illegal aliens receive over $550 million annually in taxpayer benefits. The Heritage Foundation has determined that for every dollar illegal immigrants put into the economy, illegal immigrants receive over $3 in taxpayer-funded benefits. The problem with this is that Tennessee citizens are financially subsidizing illegal immigrants in Tennessee. The Eligibility Verification for Entitlement Act seeks to put an end to illegal immigrants fraudulently receiving taxpayer benefits for which they are not entitled.

What would the Eligibility Verification for Entitlement Act require of the Tennessee Department of Education and local school districts when it comes to disbursement of funding?

Carr: These three bills do not apply to anyone under the age of 18 or restrict in any way emergency medical care. The U.S. Supreme Court determined emergency medical care and the education of children under 18 would be exempt from these proposed statutes.

What will the Lawful Immigration Enforcement Act do?

Carr: What is particularly important to this bill is that what we have attempted to do is address a Tennessee problem with a Tennessee solution mandated by the Tennessee voters. The Tennessean last year polled 600 registered voters in the state of Tennessee in which it was found 72 percent of those polled wanted similar legislation as Arizona passed. What my colleagues, Sens. (Bill) Ketron, (Jim) Tracy and (Jack) Johnson and I are trying to do is come up with a Tennessee answer to a Tennessee problem regarding illegal immigration. We have done that with regard to the Lawful Immigration Enforcement Act. This bill allows state and local law enforcement officers or officials in the course of a lawful stop to ascertain the lawful presence of the individual who was stopped. If this person is determined to be unlawfully in the United States or an illegal alien, the law enforcement agent may arrest and detain them for the purpose of Immigration Customs and Enforcement then determining whether or not the person should be deported.

Nationally syndicated Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist Cynthia Tucker of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution recently compared Arizona's illegal immigration law to Apartheid, the former South Africa policy that allowed the minority white population to dominate the country and segregate whites from the non-whites. What's your response to that criticism?

Carr: Basically, it's the exaggerated hyperbole of the left that wants to continue to inflame the issue because they don't have the law and the facts on their side. A comment like hers is nuts.

Given that President Barack Obama's administration has sued to challenge the Arizona law, isn't it premature for Tennessee to seek similar legislation before the U.S. Supreme Court makes a ruling?

Carr: Two points. The first point is the Tennessee General Assembly does not take its instruction from the court until it's rendered a decision. Instead, we are instructed directly by the voters by a margin of over 72 percent in Tennessee that they want strong illegal immigration enforcement laws. The second point is we didn't rush. I personally have spent hundreds of hours working on these three pieces of legislation since April 2010. Moreover, this has not been the expressed effort of one individual but a collaborative effort of many members of the Tennessee General Assembly, state legislators from the other states, the legal office of the Tennessee General Assembly and lawyers who specialize in constitutional law and immigration law reform. What we believe we have as a result of hundreds and hundreds of man hours in the form of these three bills are excellent pieces of legislation for Tennesseans and model legislation for other states, as well.

What have you done personally?

Carr: I have been involved in crafting these three pieces of legislation since the beginning along with my colleagues, Sens. Ketron, Tracy and Johnson. We have consistently maintained the intent of the legislation while at the same time adhering to the U.S. and Tennessee constitutions.

What can you do to make sure competing bills filed between you and your senate colleagues can emerge as unified laws?

Carr: The reason there are multiple bills filed on the same subject is to ensure passage of meaningful illegal immigration reform. It's unlikely we will calendar all the immigration bills.

Why shouldn't immigration be up to the federal government to propose, such as when former President George W. Bush unsuccessfully called for a comprehensive immigration reform law that allowed for guest workers from other countries?

Carr:Immigration is a federal issue. The 1986 Immigration Act by Congress that was signed into law by President (Ronald) Reagan provided amnesty for 6 million illegal aliens. Since 1986, the federal government, specifically the Obama administration and the Bush administration before it, have refused to enforce the federal law with regard to illegal immigration. As a result of this refusal to enforce the law, the problem has developed into a significant state issue that grows more difficult to solve each day with 140,000 illegal immigrants at a cost of over $550 million to the Tennessee taxpayer.

I took an oath to uphold the Tennessee Constitution and to protect and serve the citizens of this state, and that's exactly what these three bills endeavor to do. If the Obama administration won't uphold the U.S. Constitution, I and my colleagues are going to uphold the Tennessee Constitution.

http://www.dnj.com/article/20110227/NEWS01/102270321

Carr: In addition to being a legal issue, this is also a jobs, education and health care issue. According to the Pew Hispanic Center, there are 140,000 illegal immigrants in Tennessee. Approximately 25,000 of those are enrolled in K-12 schools. Another 110,000 are employed in the civilian (private sector) workforce. With a 9.4 percent unemployment rate and an underemployment rate double that in Tennessee, the question is, why are we allowing an illegal immigration population employment opportunities that lawfully and rightfully belong to the citizens of Tennessee?

Thank YOU Representative Carr! I wish I saw more politicans who were willing to take the stand you have taken; it's the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth.