An attempt Tuesday by Rep. Steve Brunk, R-Wichita, to create a one-year pilot project of the federal electronic employment verification program was derailed by the usual immigration politics, the Topeka Capital-Journal reported. Brunk wanted to test the E-Verify system, which checks citizenship status, on applicants for state government jobs before requiring the private sector or local units of government to use it. He warned his Federal and State Affairs Committee that if lawmakers loaded up the bill with other requirements – such as that law enforcement officers check the immigration status of people they encounter – he would stop debate. But other lawmakers couldn’t resist trying to broaden the bill, and the measure quickly stalled.
A blogger for the Nation thought the Southern Mississippi band’s chanting of “Where’s your green card?” at Kansas State guard Angel Rodriguez last week had “about as much in common with normal rowdy fan behavior as a glee club has with a lynch mob.” Dave Zirin continued: “The chant, first and foremost, was both racist and stupid, given that Rodriguez is actually from Puerto Rico, and therefore has citizenship. But given that the state of Mississippi’s Republican electorate just voted for Rick Santorum, who recently said that Puerto Rico could only be a state if everyone learned and spoke English, their actions should anger but not surprise.” He also noted that the game was played on the same day the Mississippi House passed a “deeply punitive, racial-profiling anti-immigration” bill championed by Gov. Phil Bryant.
Sen. Jerry Moran, R-Kan., supports ending birthright citizenship. So does Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, the architect of the nation’s toughest anti-immigration state laws. But to eliminate the 14th Amendment’s automatic citizenship for anyone born on U.S. soil, they’d need to get past Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform. “This is a tax on every child being born,” Norquist said last week. “It solves no problems and instead creates all sorts of problems and costs in terms of Americans.” His comments came as the National Foundation for American Policy released a study showing that to establish citizenship for each child, parents would have to spend $600 to $1,000 on legal fees.
Secretary of State Kris Kobach is on the cover of this month’s Governing Magazine. The profile chronicles how he became a leading figure in the national immigration debate. “I did not anticipate when I first started working on this issue,” Kobach said, “that someday I would be seen as a hero by some and a horrible villain by others on a national scale.” Several people in the article complained that Kobach is using the immigration issue and his public office for his own political and financial gain. “He is using a state-held position to further a larger agenda that is not benefiting the voters he is supposed to be protecting,” said state Rep. Melody McCray-Miller, D-Wichita.
State Rep. Ponka-We Victors, D-Wichita, shared with lawmakers last week her personal experiences with Arizona’s anti-immigration laws, the Topeka Capital-Journal reported. Victors, who is of American Indian and Latino heritage, said she was hassled and detained by border control agents while visiting her family in Arizona. “Every time I left Arizona, it was like a sigh of relief when I came back to Kansas. But now, with these laws, I don’t know about that anymore,” Victors said, referring to several anti-immigration bills before the Legislature. Victors, who wants stronger enforcement on both the Mexican and Canadian borders, also joked that Native Americans have a different perspective on this debate. “Personally, my people have been fighting immigration since 1492,” she said. “It doesn’t get any better.”
Secretary of State Kris Kobach usually argues that states and cities have the authority to pass immigration-related laws. But Tuesday he contended that a bill to help qualifying illegal immigrants gain work privileges in Kansas would pre-empt the federal government’s jurisdiction over immigration. “A state cannot deport someone, and similarly a state cannot confer status upon an illegal person,” Kobach said at a House hearing. Others who testified, including former Kansas Agriculture Secretary Allie Devine, said that federal law allows states to sponsor workers.
Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach said that the anti-immigration law he crafted has increased Alabama’s reputation around the country. “There are many legislators in other states that are saying, you know, ‘They’ve really done something great,’” he told the public radio show “This American Life.” But an editorial by the Mobile, Ala., Press-Register complained that “such comments could only come from someone who has no real ties to Alabama but who wants to use the state as a guinea pig for his own personal gain.” The editorial said that the law “has embarrassed the governor, discouraged industry, scared legal immigrants and, according to a recent report, been a drag on the state economy it was supposed to help.”
Secretary of State Kris Kobach (in photo) endorsed Mitt Romney for president, saying Romney would “finally put a stop to a problem that has plagued our country for a generation: millions of illegal aliens coming into the country and taking jobs from United States citizens and legal aliens, while consuming hundreds of billions of dollars in public benefits at taxpayer expense.” Romney said he was proud to receive Kobach’s support, adding that “we need more conservative leaders like Kris willing to stand up for the rule of law.” But others don’t see it that way. Frank Sharry of the advocacy group America’s Voice said the endorsement showed that Romney’s “descent into the dark clutches of radical nativism is complete.”
Because state laws requiring local law enforcement to verify citizenship are now tied up in the courts, some state lawmakers may focus instead on making daily life difficult for illegal immigrants, USA Today reported. Of particular interest is a provision in Alabama’s law that invalidates all contracts entered into with illegal immigrants. “That is one that has a much greater effect than some people might expect at first glance,” said Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, who helped write the law. But Karen Tumlin of the National Immigration Law Center complained the provision “has led to nothing short of chaos” in Alabama, as it has been “applied to a striking range of activities, from getting tags on your cars to getting public utilities to changing title on your cars.” Still, that seems to be the objective for Kobach and some others: Create enough fear and uncertainty, and illegal immigrants will leave a state on their own.
Gov. Sam Brownback has a full agenda set for the coming legislative session, with reforms to school funding, Medicaid, taxes and water policy, as well as a major governmental reorganization. What’s not on his list is immigration. Brownback has spoken eloquently in the past about the need for comprehensive immigration reform and to avoid demonizing immigrants. But he has since backed away from the issue. He told The Eagle editorial board last week that he doesn’t see much point in bringing up immigration, because it is too “electrified.”
Good for Newt Gingrich for calling for a “humane” immigration policy during Tuesday’s GOP presidential debate. Gingrich supports deportation of illegal immigrants who’ve recently arrived, but he doesn’t think the U.S. should deport people who have been here a long time and whose children and grandchildren live here. “I can’t imagine any serious person here in the country who believes we’re going to tear families apart that have been here 20, 25 years,” Gingrich said after the debate.
Secretary of State Kris Kobach is taking pride in the fallout from Alabama’s immigration law, which he helped write and calls “air-tight” despite the ongoing legal war over it. “I’m proud to have been a part of it, and the untold story is how successful it has already been in opening jobs for Alabama citizens,” Kobach said in a Mobile (Ala.) Press-Register profile. “There haven’t been mass arrests. There aren’t a bunch of court proceedings. People are simply removing themselves. It’s self-deportation at no cost to the taxpayer. I’d say that’s a win.” Farmers disagree, complaining that they can’t find workers to harvest their crops. Opinions also diverge about Kobach. Southern Poverty Law Center spokesman Mark Potok said: “Wherever he’s gone, you find communities torn apart culturally, economically and racially.” But Alabama state Rep. Micky Hammon said, “As far as I’m concerned, he is a godsend.”
When even a tough Texan like Gov. Rick Perry agrees that illegal immigrants should be able to pay in-state tuition rates at colleges, you know the issue is not so simple.
Most of these students were brought to this country by their parents when they were young. They have grown up in the United States and may have little to do with their “native” country. Most of them speak English well — and may not speak any other language.
They did not choose to break any law. It would be petty and mean-spirited to deport them to a “homeland” they may have never seen.
These students are not being given handouts or scholarships. They simply want to pay their own way and better their lives.
Congress has been trying for decades to solve the riddle of illegal immigration. It should keep at it, but in the meantime no student should be denied an education because of something beyond his or her control.
Millions of law-abiding Americans are fed up with government policies that wink at illegal immigration. Illegal immigrants should not be allowed to pay in-state tuition rates.
They may be here when they try to enroll, but they are not here legally. Letting them get a college education at taxpayer-supported institutions mocks the concept of rule by law. After they graduate, they have another argument for amnesty thanks to gullible politicians like Rick Perry.
Many colleges have firm enrollment caps. That means that every classroom seat taken up by an illegal immigrant is one that can’t be filled by a law-abiding citizen.
Instead of handing out college educations, drivers licenses and other goodies to illegals, state officials should start enforcing the law and sending them back to their home countries.
— Beaumont (Texas) Enterprise
Secretary of State Kris Kobach, who has said he wrote Alabama’s tough immigration law on his laptop while sitting in a Kansas turkey blind, got a boost Wednesday when a federal judge ruled that key parts of the law can be enforced immediately while other parts remain blocked for now. So Alabama authorities can question, and hold without bond, those suspected of being in the country illegally, and public schools must verify students’ citizenship and report statistics to the state. The law has drawn multiple legal challenges, including from the Obama administration. Kobach said the Alabama judge’s ruling bolsters more than supporters of that state’s law. “It really helps the other states trying to fight the good fight here in stopping illegal immigration,” he told an Alabama TV station. And Kobach plans to push the 2012 Kansas Legislature to pass an Arizona-style immigration law.
Illegal immigrants aren’t eligible to receive federal benefits, such as welfare. But ambiguity in federal tax law has enabled some to receive refundable tax credits. A new audit found that the Internal Revenue Service allowed undocumented workers to collect $4.2 billion in refunded tax credits last year, the Washington Post reported. Congress or the Treasury Department needs to clarify that the law doesn’t apply to illegal immigrants.
Gov. Sam Brownback was understated in opposing the 2011 Legislature’s attempt to repeal the 2004 state law allowing children of illegal immigrants to pay in-state tuition rates at state universities and colleges — which failed again. If Brownback, who sponsored such a law in the U.S. Senate before voting against it, wants to be a bolder defender in the future, he might look to Texas Gov. Rick Perry’s approach. The first-in-the-nation Texas law, which Perry (in photo) signed in 2001, lets kids pay the lower in-state rates if they’ve lived in Texas for three years and earned a GED or diploma from a Texas high school. Perry, who soon may join the GOP presidential field, told the New Hampshire Union Leader that he still supports the law. “To punish these young Texans for their parents’ actions is not what America has always been about,” Perry said. He’s right.
The idea of denying birthright citizenship to children born in the United States to illegal immigrants has support from GOP presidential candidates Tim Pawlenty and Herman Cain. Sen. Jerry Moran, R-Kan., has co-sponsored legislation that would allow a child to be a citizen at birth only if one parent were a U.S. citizen, legal resident alien or active member of the U.S. armed forces. But in a new Time magazine survey, 62 percent of respondents said the 14th Amendment should not be revised.
With Secretary of State Kris Kobach’s name appearing in so many national articles about immigration laws and enforcement, Kansans may wonder how engaged he is in his day job of overseeing the state’s business filings and elections. A Politico article depicted some unparalleled multitasking by Kobach, who is “of counsel” to the D.C.-based Immigration Reform Law Institute: “Kobach said he writes legal briefs on nights and weekends away from his day job. He drafted the Alabama law, he said, on his laptop while sitting in a turkey blind” in Kansas. Kobach repeated the line he used during the campaign: “Some politicians golf in their spare time. I spend mine defending American sovereignty.”
Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach struck out again in his crusade to prevent states from allowing children of illegal immigrants to pay in-state college tuition rates. The U.S. Supreme Court refused Monday to take Kobach’s appeal of a California Supreme Court ruling upholding the tuition law. Kobach also failed in previous court challenges to Kansas’ law. However, Kobach was successful in another case Monday. The Supreme Court sent back for reconsideration an appellate court decision that a Hazleton, Pa., illegal immigration ordinance was unconstitutional.
“The faces in the jury box are a cross-section of southern Kansas. The judge has a white beard, wears a bow tie and speaks in the straightforward language of the Great Plains. One defense lawyer favors cowboy boots and sometimes dons bolo ties.” — the opening of a New York Times article on the Wichita trial of Lazare Kobagaya, who is accused of lying to immigration officials about his involvement in the Rwandan genocide
The 2011 legislative session hit a low point — or so we can hope — last month with the joke by state Rep. Virgil Peck, R-Tyro, suggesting the state fight its illegal immigrant population with helicopter gunships. But House Speaker Mike O’Neal, R-Hutchinson, was right Wednesday to dismiss a Democratic proposal to formally censure Peck as unworthy of the Legislature’s time. All agree that Peck’s ugly comment was appalling and the national spotlight it put on the state was regrettable. Let it go.
It’s disappointing that Sen. Jerry Moran, R-Kan., has signed on as a co-sponsor of xenophobic legislation sponsored by Sen. David Vitter, R-La., to deny birthright citizenship to children who are born in the United States to illegal immigrants. Under the bill, a child would be born a U.S. citizen only if one parent was a U.S. citizen, legal resident alien or active member of the U.S. armed forces. “Sen. Moran believes the federal government must enforce our laws and not reward illegal behavior. Making this change will discourage, rather than encourage, illegal immigration,” Lindsey Trent, Moran’s press secretary, told The Eagle editorial board. Vitter contends that such birthright citizenship, or what he and other critics call “birth tourism,” is not protected by the 14th Amendment. But even the Arizona Legislature recognized, as of last month, that curbing birthright citizenship is one anti-immigration measure too far.
Thanks are due a bipartisan group of Hispanic state legislators, including Rep. Mario Goico (in photo), R-Wichita, for injecting some common sense and civility into Kansas’ debate about illegal immigration by co-sponsoring a resolution stating what should be obvious: that immigration is a federal issue, not a state one, and that Congress should “enact thorough, commonsense, workable and humane reforms that reflect the realities of our country’s work force needs and represent America’s values at its best.” Their resolution cuts through the noise over this issue, including some outrageously insensitive comments by other lawmakers, and emphasizes that Kansas should be “a welcoming and business-friendly state,” that the Legislature should oppose policies that separate families, that law enforcement resources should focus on criminal activities rather than civil violations, and that immigration is important to the nation’s past and future. Passage of such a symbolic resolution may not change much, but its failure to pass would be sadly telling.
Local and national human rights groups gathered more than 55,000 signatures on an online petition calling for state Rep. Virgil Peck, R-Tyro, to resign for “joking” that illegal immigrants could be shot from helicopters like feral pigs. The groups delivered the petitions today to Gov. Sam Brownback and House Speaker Mike O’Neal, R-Hutchinson. But Peck has refused to resign, and House GOP leaders are refusing to discuss the matter.
It was good that an overwhelming majority of Kansas House members rejected an effort to pass an Arizona-style immigration bill. That’s the last thing Kansas needs right now, especially after the recent “joke” by Rep. Virgil Peck, R-Tyro, about shooting illegal immigrants. The measure pushed by Rep. Lance Kinzer, R-Olathe, and Secretary of State Kris Kobach stalled in the House Judiciary Committee. An attempt Wednesday to force it out of committee failed 84-40.
An attempt Tuesday by Rep. Steve Brunk, R-Wichita, to create a one-year pilot project of the federal electronic employment verification program was derailed by the usual immigration politics, the Topeka Capital-Journal reported. Brunk wanted to test the E-Verify system, which checks citizenship status, on applicants for state government jobs before requiring the private sector or local units of government to use it. He warned his Federal and State Affairs Committee that if lawmakers loaded up the bill with other requirements – such as that law enforcement officers check the immigration status of people they encounter – he would stop debate. But other lawmakers couldn’t resist trying to broaden the bill, and the measure quickly stalled.
