Legal Commentary

AZ Senate Rejects Five Immigration Bills

By Jeralyn

Did the efforts to boycott Arizona have some impact? The answer is yes. After passing the deplorable SB 1070, yesterday the Arizona Senate defeated five new restrictive immigration bills.

One bill would have denied citizenship to children of undocumented residents (not a chance it would have passed a judicial challenge if enacted.) The others bills would:

• Require hospitals to make an effort to determine if the people they are treating are here legally.
• Restrict the registration of vehicles to only legal residents.
• Bar admission into state universities and community colleges to anyone who cannot prove citizenship or legal residency.

Other provisions in the bills would have required cities to evict all residents of a public housing unit if just one resident is undocumented, required parents to show proof of citizenship or lawful presence when enrolling a child in school, and made it a crime for an undocumented resident to drive in Arizona.

Republicans voting against the bill said the boycott had an effect. [More...]

At least some of the Republicans who voted against the package said they were swayed by opposition from the business community. That campaign culminated earlier this week with a letter to legislators citing a boycott and hit to Arizona's economy from passage of last year's SB 1070, which gave police more power to arrest illegal immigrants. They argued that new moves in this direction would further slow economic development.

"It's something that the people don't want us to be focusing on," said Sen. John McComish, R-Phoenix. He also said the whole debate over illegal immigration has become a "distraction"' from more important issues like the budget, crime and health care.

Republican Governor Jan Brewer refused to oppose the bills. She really needs to go.

Full post as published by TalkLeft on March 18, 2011 (boomark / email).