Founder of Mississippi Republican immigration opposition group: Don't let the Hispanics vote

Dr. Rodney Hunt, founder of the Mississippi Federation for Immigration Reform and Enforcement (MFIRE for short), penned an article in Friday's Clarion-Ledger titled "Would amnesty solve Republicans' problems with Hispanic voters?"

Since his group has the word "enforcement" in its title, how do you think he answered that question?

Dr. Hunt spends the first 2/3rds of his column on stats regarding the number of Hispanic voters and how they lean Democratic.  Then he hits us with this:

Most grassroots conservatives understand that legalization of 11 million illegal aliens would forever transform our country from one that is divided almost 50-50 to a nation of one-party rule by the liberal coalition. This will result in national policies being determined by progressives and consistent losses for conservatives.

That's about as clear an admission one can get that to "conservatives" like Dr. Hunt immigration reform isn't about morality, it's about winning elections.  And if Republicans can just keep non-whites from voting, they can win.

Maybe Chief Justice Roberts can repeat for us his bedtime story about race no longer being an issue in our elections.

Republicans are hiding the truth on immigration reform efforts

In Sunday's Clarion-Ledger, the leader of a group called "MFIRE" (Mississippi Federation for Immigration Reform and Enforcement) had a letter to the editor that tried to blame immigration issues on House Democrats, specifically Rep. Bobby Moak of Bogue Chitto. Specifically, the letter says:

An effort was made this past legislative session to strengthen SB 2988 in Mississippi's "Arizona Style" enforcement bill by "requiring" the attorney general to enforce our E-Verify law. Unfortunately, House Democrats who have routinely worked against enforcement changed the sanctions against employers to monetary fines - specifically prohibited by federal statute. This amendment was handled by Rep. Bobby Moak, D-Bogue Chitto, one of Speaker Billy McCoy's lieutenants. Either they didn't know the law or this unlawful fine was the Democrat leadership's way to kill the bill.

The letter, of course, doesn't reveal what legislation Rep. Moak amended, presumably because that would lead to someone doing a little research on the issue.

What the letter is referring to is SB 2179, which was the god-awful legislation that would have put monetary fines on law enforcement officials, mayors, supervisors, and aldermen who didn't "effectively" enforce anti-immigrant laws. This was a hot topic during the legislative session, and is covered in depth here, here, here, and here. In short, Rep. Moak's amendment took the fines against local officials and put them on the businesses who employ illegal immigrants in the first place. And guess what? House Republicans agreed. Republicans voted almost uniformly for Moak's amendment. Which, I guess, makes it a bipartisan amendment.

The letter goes on to say:

Don't let your incumbent Democrat come home and tell you how conservative they are when their first vote will be to elect a speaker like Rep. Moak who has been a part of the coalition that has stopped significant legislation.

To be accurate, I guess the letter should be rewritten to say:

Don't let your incumbent Democrat legislator come home and tell you how conservative they are when their first vote will be to elect a speaker like Rep. Moak, Rep. Jeff Smith (R-Columbus), Rep. Phillip Gunn (R-Clinton), Rep. Sid Bondurant (R-Grenada), or Rep. Mark Baker (R-Brandon), who has have been a part of the coalition that has stopped significant wrongheaded legislation.

BREAKING - Mississippi House passes revised immigration legislation

The Mississippi House has passed a revised version of the much discussed SB 2179. The revised version strips the provisions for lawsuits against law enforcement officials, just as the Baria Amendment would have done. Lawsuits against businesses who employ undocumented workers remain, however.

The bill will now go to conference committee.

Clarion-Ledger story on lawsuit provision on immigration bill

Molly Parker over at the Clarion-Ledger penned a story for today's Clarion-Ledger that discusses what we've been talking about over here for the past week: the Senate Republicans' efforts to create lawsuits against local law enforcement officials. (Cottonmouth stories here, here, here and here.

In the story, she quotes Monticello Mayor David Nichols as saying:

When you're bringing that many in, one or two are going to fall through the crack and are not here legally. Knowing that, (say) there's a guy down the street that's got a bone to pick with the mayor or the Board of Aldermen ... and they sue us, personally ... There's something wrong with that.

Indeed there is, Mayor Nichols. Ms. Parker then discusses the Baria Amendment which would have removed the lawsuit provisions, but was voted down by Senate Republicans (See who voted against it here.)

Derrick Surrette, executive director of the Mississippi Association of Supervisors, and Prentiss Mayor Charlie Dumas, president of the Mississippi Municipal League, are both quoted as having concerns about the legislation. George Lewis, Executive Director of the MML, said he felt law enforcement should have been at the table when the legislation was crafted.

Can't say that we disagree, Mr. Lewis.

Sen. David Baria's press release concerning SB 2179

Sen. David Baria has issued a press release covering the lawsuits created by SB 2179 and his efforts to have it removed.  Here's the portion of the release covering that:

The Senate debated and passed two very important bills last week. The Immigration Bill (SB 2179) was brought to the Senate floor from the Judiciary A Committee by Chairman Fillingane. The bill is an attempt to enact a good concept: creation of a state-federal partnership to enforce immigration law. Like many good ideas around the Capitol, when the bill was drafted and presented it contained some troubling language.

In presenting the bill, the chairman immediately offered multiple amendments due to what were characterized as clerical errors. Several other amendments were offered by other senators, including myself, during the nearly 4-hour debate. The bill was over 700-lines long and many felt that there had not been sufficient time allowed to adequately analyze such a comprehensive bill. Thus, the members were learning of the contents of the bill on-the-fly, so to speak. In fact, the process brought to mind what it must have been like for the U.S. Congress to consider the health care overhaul last year. There was simply too much to swallow in too little time.

However, it was clear right away that a portion of the bill would be objectionable to a large number of members, as well as the law enforcement community and municipalities. The bill includes a provision that creates a new lawsuit that can be filed by citizens against law enforcement authorities and the public entities for which they work if it is felt that the law enforcement authorities have a policy of not adequately enforcing federal immigration law. If the citizen prevails in the lawsuit, they can be awarded attorneys fees and expenses of litigation against the county or town. If the law enforcement authority wins, it can be awarded attorneys fees and costs as well. In addition, if the county or town loses, they can be assessed a fine of $5,000.00 per day for every day the policy under attack has existed.

Many members of the Senate felt strongly that it would be bad policy to allow lawsuits against law enforcement under these circumstances. The bill clearly imposes additional responsibilities on local law enforcement without a good funding mechanism. That alone is burdensome to local governments already straining to provide services with scante resources. However, to also subject local government to a newly created lawsuit goes too far. That is why I offered an amendment to strip out the lawsuit language during the debate. My amendment had the support of the Mississippi Chiefs of Police, the Mississippi Sheriff’s Association, and the Mississippi Municipal League. Despite the inherent unfairness of the lawsuit provisions, and despite the opposition to those provisions by local government and law enforcement, the bill passed with the lawsuit language in tact.

The bill will now be sent to the House where I hope the lawsuit provisions will be removed. If they are not, I will not vote for the bill.

SB 2179 and it's consequences

We've written before about the fallout on local governments as a result of the language in SB 2179, known as the "Arizona-style" immigration legislation the Mississippi Senate passed on Tuesday. The Mississippi Municipal League, as well as the associations for the sheriffs an the police chiefs, have all voiced opposition to the legislation as is. Let's look at why.

To begin with, none of those associations are against cracking down on illegal immigration, and they've said as much. The devil, as always, is in the details. And the details of SB 2179 are devilish indeed. For instance, the bill would require local law enforcement to enforce federal immigration law, something which they are not trained to do. Well, that's no big deal, right? Anyone can go get trained, can't they? Well, this bill provides no funding for training, nor for the time off to attend it. What happens when there's no training? Mistakes are made, civil rights are violated, and lawsuits get filed.

And what about housing those who are arrested for allegedly being in the country illegally? Well, there's a provision for a $20 per day reimbursement to local governments for that purpose, but of course the money is just to be randomly allocated by the Legislature each year. That means there is absolutely no secure, steady source of funding for the reimbursement. Good thing money's growing on trees in Jackson. Oh, wait....

Then there's the provision that was the focus of the Baria Amendment we've written about before. Under this bill, private citizens could sue local law enforcement for not enforcing this law. This is bad for many reasons, but the first thing that sticks out is that the Republican authors and supporters of this bill simply don't trust law enforcement officers to do their sworn duty to uphold the law. As if impugning the character of Mississippi's true public servants isn't enough, the supporters of this bill are also looking to pull money out of the coffers of already suffering local governments by instituting a $5,000 per day fine if they aren't enforcing this unfunded mandate forcefully enough.

Then there's the honestly dangerous part of all of this: many, if not most, law enforcement agencies have an automatic administrative leave policy that kicks in when a law enforcement officer is sued. That means that this legislation will take officers off of the streets of Mississippi, endangering all of us.

One can't help but notice something very important missing from this bill: large civil and criminal penalties against businesses that employ undocumented workers. A better wage than what they can get at home is the big magnet that draws folks here. If they couldn't find work in Mississippi, they wouldn't come here in the first place. So why is the Mississippi Republican Party targeting law enforcement and local governments, and not big business?

More on that unfunded mandate the Mississippi Senate just passed

Sid Salter's got a blog post up that contains the text of a memo from George Lewis, head of the Mississippi Municipal League, that outlines the problems with the immigration legislation the Senate passed yesterday.  Here's an excerpt from the memo:

While there are numerous good sections of the bill, funding is pushed down to the local, city and county and law enforcement entities to implement as an UNFUNDED MANDATE by the state, with the exception of $20/day for incarceration. There are also large fines for elected officials for not fully implementing the state program with a open-ended ability for local citizens to take local officials to court.

What in the world are Sen. Joey Fillingane (R-Sumrall) and Lt. Gov. Phil Bryant thinking with this language? Aren't they supposed to be against creating unfunded mandates and causes of action against local governments?

Unfunded mandate?

The Mississippi Senate passed Arizona-style immigration legislation yesterday, 34-15.  Simply put, the bill is an unfunded mandate that local governments will be forced to implement...or be sued by private citizens.  That's right: if your local police department isn't checking citizenship status during traffic stops, then you can sue them for $5,000 per day.

Bobby Harrison's article on the issue from today's Daily Journal is a good one.  More to come...