House panel starts grappling with immigration measures

ByTim Eaton
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
April 13, 2011

A Texas House committee started grappling Wednesday evening with numerous immigration-related proposals.

Most of the testimony to the State Affairs Committee in the meeting, which continued into the night, was from people who wanted stricter immigration laws.

Several complained to the committee, which considers virtually every immigration-related piece of legislation in the House, about undocumented immigrants taking American jobs and using American resources.

One bill, House Bill 301 by Rep. Leo Berman, would establish English as the official language of Texas and would call for officially printed documents to be in English.

Berman, a Republican from Tyler , said it was about saving money. "This bill has to do with printing costs," he said, adding the savings will be in the millions of dollars if the state doesn't have to print documents in other languages.

Two other bills — HB 178 by Rep. Jim Jackson and HB 202 by Rep. Burt Solomons, both Carrollton Republicans — would call for the use of E-Verify , an Internet-based system that allows businesses to determine the eligibility of their employees to work in the U.S.

Jackson's measure would require all state governmental agencies to use the system. He said his bill "just asks the state to do as much as the federal government."

Solomons' bill would require state contractors to participate in the program.

One member of the public , Maria Martinez of Houston, said she came to testify because too many jobs are being taken by people in the country illegally. She said she would like stricter laws — even stricter than the ones being laid out Wednesday night.

"They're not putting forth a bill that has enough teeth," Martinez said.

The committee also heard from the public about a bill by Rep. Debbie Riddle, R-Tomball, that seeks to make it a state jail felony to knowingly hire an undocumented immigrant. Riddle, one of the Legislature's most prolific filers of immigration-related bills, said that under HB 1202, all a potential employer would need to do is ask for a driver's license or other form of identification.

Another bill involved health care.

House Bill 1553 by Rep. Lyle Larson, R-San Antonio, requires that people providing publicly funded health services must determine patients' country of origin before rendering services. If it is later determined that people who received care are in the country illegally, then the state could later collect money from the patients' home countries.

If the countries don't have the money to pay, then the state, perhaps, could tap the country's natural resources and start mining or drilling in the foreign country, Larson suggested.

Though most of the testimony during the evening was in favor of the immigration bills, a few people were critical of the immigration-related bills. Representatives from Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund spoke against Berman's bill, saying it would not help immigrants learn English.

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