Posted on 01/29/2004 8:53:53 PM PST by Robert Lomax
TOPEKA -- Tuesday was a cold, blustery winter day. So why would anyone take a day off to be outside?
More than 1,500 took the day to walk through downtown Topeka, showing their support for a bill allowing driver's licenses for illegal immigrants.
"This is an important issue in any community, the Asian community and the Hispanic community," said activist and Newton High School teacher Crystal Sanhueza. "This is an issue for businesses; their workers need to get to work. People thought it was important enough to take a day off of work."
Critics said the bill would compromise homeland security, and one opponent called it "indecent." Yet, the measure inspired hundreds of supporters to rally at the Statehouse.
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Elias Garcia, executive director of the Kansas Advisory Committee on Hispanic Affairs, addresses members of the Senate Judiciary Committee about a Senate bill that would issue temporary driver's licenses to undocumented workers in Kansas.
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Sanhueza braved the cold and helped organize bus trips for the rally. More than 75 people boarded buses at in Newton Tuesday morning to be part of the demonstration in Topeka. They joined buses from Dodge City, Wichita and Kansas City in Topeka.
"This issue is really about safety," Sanhueza said. "I think that anyone that is going to be driving in Kansas needs to be able to get a legal driver's license. I don't care if they will be here only a month; if they are going to be here they need to be able to take the test and have a license."
The bill would create a new "temporary resident" license and eliminate a prohibition in Kansas law against issuing a license to anyone "not lawfully present in the United States." The House narrowly approved the measure last year, and the Senate Judiciary Committee heard conflicting and sometimes passionate testimony Tuesday.
Critics said the bill would make it easier for terrorists to operate. One opponent was Peter Gadiel, of Kent, Conn., whose son, James, a 23-year-old assistant securities trader, died in the 2001 attack on the World Trade Center.
"To those of us whose sons, husbands, daughters, sisters and mothers were murdered on Sept. 11, the idea that any state would even think giving official, valid ID to a person who is not lawfully in this country is indecent," he said.
But the temporary resident license would allow those who are waiting for their citizenship papers to be processed to get a legal driver's license.
"There are many persons here who have not finished with legal documents that need to be able to get insurance while their papers are being processed," Sanhueza said.
Supporters told the committee the bill would make the state's roads and highways safer by regulating drivers who have gone unregulated previously. Backers of the bill included attorneys, law enforcement officials and members of Gov. Kathleen Sebelius' administration.
"It is a safety issue," said Sebelius spokeswoman Nicole Corcoran. "We would much rather have people driving with a driver's license, registered in our state, than without."
Also, Hispanic activists said the measure would recognize the growing number of immigrants in Kansas and their contributions to the state's economy.
"Hispanics are doing the Lord's work -- we're populating this earth, basically," said Elias Garcia, executive director of the Kansas Advisory Commission on Hispanic Affairs. "Quite bluntly, let me say that we're not going anywhere. This is our home."
As the committee met, more than 1,000 people, mostly Hispanic, rallied outside the Statehouse in support of the measure. They marched several blocks from Assumption Church, with the temperature below 5 degrees.
One woman at the front of the march carried a cardboard cutout of the state's famous John Brown mural, which hangs across from the governor's office. The mural depicts the abolitionist Brown carrying a Bible in one hand and gun in the other. In the cutout, Brown was carrying a photo of the Statue of Liberty and a driver's license.
Roberto Baeza of Sunflower Action Committee in Wichita and organizer of the Newton chapter, Hispano nidos, said demonstrators represented several ethnic groups --Asians, Hispanics and whites were all part of the march.
"It was very good," Baeza said. "Senators, representatives and the Governor's office noticed people were there. And right now we need to educate people on this issue; that is our big push."
Emira Palacios, an organizer with Sunflower Community Action, estimated there were more than 200,000 immigrants driving on Kansas roads to work and school without a license. During the committee hearing, Overland Park police Lt. Col. Stephen Smith said undocumented immigrants come to Kansas for jobs.
"We are deceiving ourselves if we believe they are not driving, which is essential to their livelihoods," he said.
But Gadiel, lobbying for a group that represents survivors and families of victims of the terrorist attacks, said the terrorists found it relatively easy to blend in with "an ocean of illegal immigrants."
Topeka resident Paul Degener expressed frustration that the state provides an education to the children of illegal immigrants and medical care in hospital emergency rooms.
"It bothers me that I have to obey the law, but we are ignoring and in fact rewarding illegal aliens," he said. "Why are we not requiring these folks to abide by the law?"
-- The Associated Press contributed to this story.
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