Immigration measures stalling
Ketron's legislation finding little support in Tennessee
BY COLBY SLEDGE • GANNETT TENNESSEE • May 4, 2009


Republicans had high hopes for changing Tennessee's immigration laws after sweeping into power last fall.

But as the economy worsened and the session wore on, they've have had to change their focus.

Kingsport Republican Rep. Tony Shipley and Murfreesboro Republican Sen. Bill Ketron had introduced a wide-ranging proposal that, among other measures, would bar illegal immigrants from attending Tennessee colleges and would require employers with state contracts to prove the immigration status of their employees.

That proposal, along with other bills this session that would have implemented pieces of Shipley and Ketron's bill, appears to have mostly failed or stalled.

"We came to ask ourselves, where could we ... do the best thing for Tennesseans during the short time we had, and that was not coordinating a position on illegal immigration," Shipley said.

Pressure from businesses to avoid damaging Tennessee's image and a decline in interest from voters more concerned with their bank accounts than U.S. borders combined to shift the focus away from an issue that had reached fever pitch two years ago.

Last year an MTSU poll found that 47 percent of Tennesseans supported a guest-worker program, up from 40 percent the previous year.

And when the same poll asked about issues important to Tennesseans in the 2008 presidential race, illegal immigration finished ninth out of 14 topics. The economy was the top issue.

"Illegal immigration never surfaces on that as a salient issue," said Robert Wyatt, director of communication research for the MTSU Poll. "What we've found over time is that attitudes about immigration have shifted so that a near-majority now says that yes, immigrants should have a path to citizenship."

Lawmakers successfully passed immigration-related bills in the past two years, but the new laws have had little impact.

Last year Tennessee became the second state in the nation to force employers who had hired illegal immigrants to fire them. If a business were caught a second time in a three-year period, the state could revoke its operating license for a year. The law requires the reporting to be made by a local or state official, however, and mostly has been ignored.

In 2007, the state — with the backing of Gov. Phil Bredesen — ended a three-year-old driving certificate program that enabled illegal immigrants to obtain legal driving privileges. Bredesen was concerned after learning that immigrants in other states were obtaining the certificates.

Some lawmakers say the end of the certificate program hasn't stopped illegal immigrants from driving.

Ketron and Lascassas Republican Rep. Joe Carr introduced a bill to make driver's license tests available only in English, but the proposal included a clause to include Spanish, Korean, Japanese and German for applicants who could prove their residency.

Tennessee law already requires proof of residency for a driver's license, and the test already is offered in all those languages except German, which was inserted for workers at two German-owned plants coming to the state.

That bill failed this year in a subcommittee after a Republican held the potential tiebreaking vote and abstained.

Another measure would allow an employer to institute an English-only policy, "at certain times when the employer has a legitimate business necessity for such a policy." The Senate passed the proposal, and the House version is scheduled for a committee hearing this week.

But bills requiring stricter guidelines for employers to confirm employees' immigration status have met stiffer resistance. Business owners, typically key constituents for Republicans, say proposals to punish them for hiring illegal immigrants ignore problems at the federal level.

"We've worked really hard to explain to legislators that it's functionally very difficult for an employer to know if he's hiring someone who's legal," said Dan Haskell, chairman of the Tennessee Jobs Coalition and lobbyist for the Nashville Area Chamber of Commerce.

The chamber opposed a proposal to conduct Davidson County government business only in English. The measure was overwhelmingly defeated by voters in January.

Haskell said he expects little to be done on the state level addressing illegal immigration until Congress takes a full reform program in hand.

Shipley said his constituents want action now, but he and his supporters will have to wait.

He and Ketron decided to delay their bill, which was expected to cost the state about $11 million annually and could have jeopardized $217 million in federal funds for children's health services and food assistance, according to a state fiscal analysis.

Shipley said he's convinced that illegal immigration costs even more to Tennessee in health care and education; he is awaiting a comptroller's report determining the cost of illegal immigration to the state.

If the price hits Tennessee's wallet hard enough, Shipley says: "It quickly translates into a budget issue. That's the No. 1 issue."

http://www.tennessean.com/article/D4/20 ... /905040321