Illegal immigration bills going nowhere ... fast
Lubbock Avalanche-Journal
Friday, May 08, 2009
Story last updated at 5/8/2009 - 11:31 pm

In Washington and in many statehouses in the nation, few issues generate the type of passionate debate illegal immigration does. But it appears at least for this legislative session winding down in Austin, state lawmakers won't have to tackle this hot potato.

"Most immigration issues we have filed this session will probably never see the light of day," said Rep. Leo Berman.

The Tyler Republican should know. Although in this session several lawmakers filed a series of bills that would have put the brakes on illegal immigration, as it happened in the 2007 session, Berman's proposals drew the most attention.

For instance, he filed a bill that would have made English the official language in the state, another that would have denied citizenship to U.S.-born children of illegal immigrants and one that would have required employers verify whether their immigrant workers are here illegally.

But as a sixth-term legislator, Berman knows that in the 81st Legislature, which is almost evenly divided along party lines, there is little appetite for these kinds of issues. His and other immigration bills sit on the House State Affairs Committee and with only three weeks left in the session, he knows it is unlikely they will make it to the House floor.

"Most people don't have the intestinal fortitude or the guts, the political will to deal with troubling issues like these," Berman said of his colleagues.

However, House colleagues like David Swinford, R-Dumas, and Trey Martinez Fischer, D-San Antonio, are glad Berman's bills, or any similar legislation, are gong nowhere again this year.

For Swinford - who as chairman of State Affairs in the 2007 session singlehandedly killed Berman's bills in that session - even though illegal immigration is a major issue, the state has no jurisdiction on it because it is a federal issue. If the Legislature passed Berman's or similar bills, the state would have to spend as much as $300 million defending them in court because they wouldn't pass the constitutionality test, Swinford argued.

For Martinez Fischer, chairman of the Mexican-American Legislative Caucus, Berman's and other bills targeting illegal immigrants were too divisive and the legislators needed to focus on more pressing issues like the state budget.

"We're here to do state law and state policy," Martinez Fischer said. "We leave the immigration issues to the feds."

However, just because the anti-illegal immigration bills seem dead this session doesn't mean the issue will go away, Berman warned. That's because he intends to run for governor next year and this will be one of his key issues.

Although Gov. Rick Perry and U.S. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, who is expected to challenge Perry in next year's Republican Primary, are getting most of the attention for now, Berman said he expects to win because a growing number of Texans are fed up with illegal immigration and other issues he said Perry and Hutchison are ignoring.

"He doesn't want to deal with illegal aliens and neither does Sen. Hutchison and that's fine. I'll either force them to talk about it or they're going to lose an election to me," Berman said. "I am going to be a hard-line governor and I am going to deal with illegal aliens in Texas using the executive powers of the office of governor."

ENRIQUE RANGEL is A-J Austin bureau chief.

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