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Monday, March 09, 2009

House Bills 254 & 261: Round ‘Em Up

posted by Reeve Hamilton at 09:53 AM

On Feb. 18, Texas Employers for Immigration Reform held a debate between Reps. Leo Berman, a Tyler Republican, and Rafael Anchia, a Dallas Democrat. Afterward, Harry Joe, an immigration lawyer with the Dallas-based Winstead firm, approached Berman with questions about legislation he had discussed. The exchange took a turn for the worse, within earshot of a Dallas Morning News reporter. Joe called Berman “despicable” and “evil,” and Berman replied by telling Joe, a Chinese-American, to “kiss my ass” and “go home.”

“I don’t think he meant, ‘Go home to your house in Preston Hollow,’” Joe later told the Observer.

The bill in question, House Bill 254, would require illegal immigrants to live in “sanctuary cities.” Joe’s interpretation: “He wants to round them up and force them to live someplace.”

Don’t bother attempting to fathom the logistics and cost of such an operation, because not even Berman expects HB 254 to get anywhere.

“I was trying to make a point to the mayors of self-declared ‘sanctuary cities’ in Texas, who are in clear violation of U.S. and state law,” Berman says, “that if you want to support illegal aliens, we’ll send them all to your city. I think my point has been made.”

Still, reports that Berman has withdrawn the bill are erroneous. “I haven’t withdrawn it,” he says. “I’m just not going to push it. There’s a big difference.”

Berman isn’t letting sanctuary cities off the hook. “There’s a second bill,” he says, “and that one we’re going to push.” That second bill is House Bill 261, which doesn’t include the term “sanctuary cities,” but cuts off state funding to local entities that match the definition of the term in HB 254.

“Sanctuary city” is not a legal designation. HB 254 defines it as “a municipality that adopts a resolution declaring that the municipality does not discriminate or deny municipal services on the basis of a person’s immigration status and that all persons are treated equally regardless of immigration status.”

“These cities know who they are,” Berman says.

Austin, whose City Council declared it a “safety zone” in 1997, would surely be included. A 2006 report by the Congressional Research Service also listed Houston and Katy as sanctuary cities. Dallas and San Antonio, which bar police from asking people about their immigration status unless they’ve been charged with a crime, would likely make the list.

Berman’s proposals are two of eight bills the representative has filed to make life difficult for undocumented immigrants. Others would deny immigrants’ children U.S. citizenship, keep them out of state colleges and universities, and require documentation for public school students. 

The ACLU hopes to dissuade aggravated state legislators from making immigration policy, which historically has been the responsibility of the federal government. “We understand that state and local municipalities are frustrated,” says Laura Martin, policy analyst with the Texas ACLU, “but this fails to get at the root of the issue, which is federal inaction.” 

 

Comments

To All who are against the poor Immigrants coming to feed their famalies,WHEN ARE YOU LEAVING MY COUNTRY ?? YOU ARE HERE ILLEGALLY, PERIOD.

Here are some facts that the politicians don’t speak about.

Undocumented immigrants paying more taxes than you think!!
Eight million Undocumented immigrants pay Social Security, Medicare and income taxes. Denying public services to people who pay their taxes is an affront to America’s bedrock belief in fairness. But many “pull-up-the-drawbridge” politicians want to do just that when it comes to illegal immigrants.

The fact that Undocumented immigrants pay taxes at all will come as news to many Americans. A stunning two thirds of Undocumented immigrants pay Medicare, Social Security and personal income taxes.

Yet, nativists like Congressman Tom Tancredo, R-Colo., have popularized the notion that illegal aliens are a colossal drain on the nation’s hospitals, schools and welfare programs — consuming services that they don’t pay for.

In reality, the 1996 welfare reform bill disqualified Undocumented immigrants from nearly all means tested government programs including food stamps, housing assistance, Medicaid and Medicare-funded hospitalization.

The only services that illegals can still get are emergency medical care and K-12 education. Nevertheless, Tancredo and his ilk pushed a bill through the House criminalizing all aid to illegal aliens — even private acts of charity by priests, nurses and social workers.

Potentially, any soup kitchen that offers so much as a free lunch to an illegal could face up to five years in prison and seizure of assets. The Senate bill that recently collapsed would have tempered these draconian measures against private aid.

But no one — Democrat or Republican — seems to oppose the idea of withholding public services. Earlier this year, Congress passed a law that requires everyone who gets Medicaid — the government-funded health care program for the poor — to offer proof of U.S. citizenship so we can avoid “theft of these benefits by illegal aliens,” as Rep. Charlie Norwood, R-Ga., puts it. But, immigrants aren’t flocking to the United States to mooch off the government.

According to a study by the Urban Institute, the 1996 welfare reform effort dramatically reduced the use of welfare by undocumented immigrant households, exactly as intended. And another vital thing happened in 1996: the Internal Revenue Service began issuing identification numbers to enable illegal immigrants who don’t have Social Security numbers to file taxes.

One might have imagined that those fearing deportation or confronting the prospect of paying for their safety net through their own meager wages would take a pass on the IRS’ scheme. Not so. Close to 8 million of the 12 million or so illegal aliens in the country today file personal income taxes using these numbers, contributing billions to federal coffers.

No doubt they hope that this will one day help them acquire legal status — a plaintive expression of their desire to play by the rules and come out of the shadows. What’s more, aliens who are not self-employed have Social Security and Medicare taxes automatically withheld from their paychecks.

Since undocumented workers have only fake numbers, they’ll never be able to collect the benefits these taxes are meant to pay for. Last year, the revenues from these fake numbers — that the Social Security administration stashes in the “earnings suspense file” — added up to 10 percent of the Social Security surplus.

The file is growing, on average, by more than $50 billion a year. Beyond federal taxes, all illegals automatically pay state sales taxes that contribute toward the upkeep of public facilities such as roads that they use, and property taxes through their rent that contribute toward the schooling of their children.

The non-partisan National Research Council found that when the taxes paid by the children of low-skilled immigrant families — most of whom are illegal — are factored in, they contribute on average $80,000 more to federal coffers than they consume. Yes, many illegal migrants impose a strain on border communities on whose doorstep they first arrive, broke and unemployed.

To solve this problem equitably, these communities ought to receive the surplus taxes that federal government collects from immigrants. But the real reason border communities are strained is the lack of a guest worker program.

Such a program would match willing workers with willing employers in advance so that they wouldn’t be stuck for long periods where they disembark while searching for jobs. The cost of undocumented aliens is an issue that immigrant bashers have created to whip up indignation against people they don’t want here in the first place.

With the Senate having just returned from yet another vacation and promising to revisit the stalled immigration bill, politicians ought to set the record straight: Illegals are not milking the government. If anything, it is the other way around.

Posted by Native American  on  03/10/09  at  01:20 PM

So tell me something? What about my girlfriend who is here legally from Tonga? She has her permanent resident status, pays her taxes like a good worker, but she cannot vote? Why should they be allowed too and not her? The point is this, Citizenship is a PRIVILEGE, Voting is a PRIVILEGE, it is belonging to America and its promise, not an entitlement for being here.

If they are operating under fake social security cards,  then we have another name for that under law, its called FRAUD. And if citizens can have fake numbers and go to federal prison for it, then I believe an illegal immigrant should have the same privilege of being arrested and carted off to their respective country, instead of a prison that CITIZENS pay real taxes for. Consider their payment of taxes their fine, as other citizens who would be arrested for fraud would likely have to pay a fine as well. We are a nation governed and ruled by law, and the law, like God, is no respecter of persons.

And as far as all of us being illegal immigrants, what was done to the native Americans was wrong, I know that and so do you. My Great Grandmother was full blooded Alabama Coushatta, I never had the chance to know her because she passed before I was born, but my dad told me that she was never angry about what happened, she always said she wouldn’t have what she did now if it had never happened. But here are the facts. America is a nation of immigrants, the land was stolen, but look at what has become of it. It has become the strongest nation in the world, a democracy that is rivaled by none. It has a Constitution that allows for this very conversation and disagreement you and I have. Im not justifying it, simply pointing out the positives of the outcome. And one thing is certain, this nation would not be what it is now, were it not for what happened to it.

Posted by Todd  on  03/22/09  at  07:34 PM

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