Posted on 03/29/2006 8:08:32 AM PST by SmithL
SACRAMENTO - Frustrated by the federal government's inability to stop the flow of illegal immigration, the state's Republican lawmakers are attempting to put the squeeze on millions of undocumented workers, students and parents in ways unseen since the movement that led to Proposition 187 more than a decade ago.
Assembly and Senate Republicans have proposed 25 measures this legislative session that would restrict illegal immigrants' access to college, block state-funded benefits and encourage police officers to act as immigration agents.
Some of the measures will be vetted at committee hearings in the coming weeks and it is almost certain that most will be blocked by the Democrat majority. But supporters of the measures are counting on new momentum coming from Congress, which is debating this week whether to criminalize illegal immigration, or approve amnesty for as many as 12 million undocumented people. And, even if their measures fail, Republican incumbents up for election can use fighting illegal immigration as a popular issue to rally their base in the November elections.
The last time California lawmakers considered as many anti-illegal immigration bills was in the 1993-94 session, when 28 measures were introduced.
Although only three became law back then, and none so far this session, the anti-illegal immigrant sentiment expressed by legislators in Sacramento seeped to voters across California, culminating in the November 1994 passage of the politically divisive Prop. 187, an initiative that sought to deny public benefits to illegal immigrants but was overturned by the courts.
"Every year that has gone by since Prop. 187 was not enforced means there's a bigger problem," said Mike Spence, president of the influential California Republican Assembly, a grass-roots group that supports conservative policies. "I think some legislators are reacting to that."
Among the bills soon headed for committee hearings: a requirement that state government job applicants prove their legal status; a law to bar employers from claiming tax deductions off of wages paid to undocumented employees; measures to study the costs associated with illegal immigration; and repealing a law that has allowed some undocumented students to pay the same public-college tuition rates as legal California residents.
Among the bills that already have failed this session were measures that would have: required school districts to count the number of undocumented students; created a border police force; and forced local law enforcement agencies to cooperate with federal immigration authorities.
"This has become a very, very important and hot topic, is the only way I can describe it," said Assemblyman Tom Harman, R-Huntington Beach, author of three bills to discourage illegal immigration. "You know, this seems to be the single most important thing that's on the minds of voters in California today."
Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez, D-Los Angeles, a defender of illegal immigrants, said he was not concerned with the spike in legislation because Democrats, through majorities in both houses, control key committees and floor votes. He accused some Republicans of using the issue to gain political support from their conservative voting base by "fanning the flames of the immigration debate and to make that debate as hostile as possible."
The bills proposed in Sacramento -- and two anti-illegal immigrant measures trying to qualify for the November ballot -- come at a time when hundreds of thousands of immigrant advocates nationwide, including a half-million in Los Angeles, rallied this past week to voice concerns about the pending federal legislation, which is expected to be resolved within two weeks.
Sherry Bebitch Jeffe, a political analyst at the University of Southern California, said the flurry of immigration legislation has a lot to do with this being an election year.
"Both sides are looking at it as an issue that can mobilize their base," she said. "For the Republicans, that base is the conservative activists. For the Democrats, it's labor, Latino voters."
Some Democrats are carrying pro-immigrant legislation, though the bill with the highest profile, a measure to allow illegal immigrants to apply for driver's licenses, could end in defeat; Schwarzenegger vetoed Sen. Gil Cedillo's identical measure last year.
More than 2.5 million illegal immigrants are believed to be in California, according to several studies.
Immigrant advocates are beginning to express concern that, just like 10 years ago -- when a long list of measures were introduced and rejected, only to be followed by Prop 187 -- momentum could swing in favor of the ballot initiatives being pushed for November.
One measure, proposed by Assemblyman Mark Wyland, a Republican from San Diego County, would bar undocumented immigrants from public health care, social services and state universities and would prevent them from ever receiving driver's licenses. The other initiative, proposed by Assemblyman Ray Haynes of Riverside County, would create the California Border Police.
"There's always the potential that some of these measures or initiatives might go further this year because things at the national level seem to be going in that direction; there's always that ripple effect," said Jeannette Zanipatin, statewide policy analyst for the California Immigrant Welfare Collaborative.
Richard Konda, executive director of the nonprofit Asian Law Alliance in San Jose, worries not only about the turning tide, but about a bill that would prohibit lawyers from using money derived from state attorney trust accounts to provide civil legal services to illegal immigrants.
"I think it's really mean spirited," said Konda, a lawyer. "There's an upsurge of blaming immigrants, whether they be undocumented, or what have you, for crime, pollution, overcrowding, the list goes on and on -- we seem to be back at that."
Among the first in a new batch of bills to hit legislative committees is a bill by Sen. Dennis Hollingsworth, R-Temecula. His bill would deny state aid to police departments whose officers do not fully cooperate with federal immigration authorities. That bill goes to Senate Public Safety Committee on April 8 -- one of four bills that will hit committees in April.
Recent Comments
GOP bills target state's immigrants
Oops! I guess this liberal media whore forgot the ILLGAL part......geesh!
"GOP bills target state's immigrants"
Horse manure. The GOP has nothing against immigrants and they are not beign targeted in any way. This bill is about LAW BREAKING ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS. A huge difference. Not that the MSM, the Senate, or the President care.
| 03/28 : Student protest Whittier area students from Pioneer, California and Whittier high schools walked out of classes to protest the proposed federal immigration bill March 27, 2006. The protestors put up the Mexican flag over the American flag flying upsidedown at Montebello High. (Leo Jarzomb/Staff photo) |
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Well that settles it the disrespectful punks have got to go and now! That's what happened to the lovely anchrbrats they grew and are disrespectful as their criminal parents.
Someone needs to get the mexican piece of garbage down and burn it!!
The refusal of the press, who knows FULL AND WELL the difference, to keep falsely and decietfully using "immigrant" in the place of "illegal immigrant" is the most disgusting display I have ever seen.
Journalism no longer exists in this country. It's all lies, all the time to push their socialist agenda.
"November 1994 passage of the politically divisive Prop. 187, an initiative that sought to deny public benefits to illegal immigrants but was overturned by the courts."
This is the major problem in California. The voter's choice is nullified by the courts!
Why aren't judges required to reveal their 'party affiliation' in an election?
Actually, it's ILLEGAL ALIENS!!!!!
Rampant illegal aliens are the unruly consequences of the unspanked immigration policy child.
"And herein is that saying true, One soweth, and another reapeth."
Prop 187 didn't lose because it ran out of appeals options in courdt. It died because Gov. Gray Davis mediated it out of court because HE wanted it to die.
That's one example, but how about the others that the courts ruled were "unconstitutional"?
There's rumor now is that the 9th Circuit Court will be reined in. Hopefully, the courts in California will be, also.
Hopefully someone will reign in the Californian courts and the 9th circuit, I don't think the state or the nation can take much of their kangaroo court decisions (especially the 9th circuit). Interpreting law is one thing but making it up as you go along is quite another.
The judges that are elected can be impeached. I don't know how you'd get the appointed judges out, though.
If legislators would demand that the courts follow stringent laws, without looking to foreign courts for guidance, it MAY check their activism
"Fourteen California Communists v. United States
The courts reversed two federal courts and ruled that teaching and advocating forcible overthrow of our Government, even "with evil intent" was NOT (emphasis mine) punishable under the Smith Act as long as it was "divorced from any effort to instigate action to that end," and ordered five Communist Party leaders freed and new trials for another nine."
Yes what a crappy headline. I was ready to go balistic on someone for kicking out legals only to find out that was they mean is illegal aliens and they put immigrants. This pisses me off a lot, but it really pisses me off more when I am stupid and should think of the sources of these stories.
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