States Pass Own Laws To Take On Illegal Immigration As Congress Drags Its Heels

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Frustration over the wait for the Federal Government to do something about illegal immigration in the United States may have served as the impetus for the change in state laws, but the states are doing things differently.

Some states like Florida and Iowa are tackling illegal immigrants by cracking down on identity theft and illegal immigrants who are sporting stolen social security numbers so they can work.

Three months ago, a massive identity theft raid by police turned up over two dozen stolen identities and undocumented persons. Many of those caught were found to be illegal immigrants and are scheduled to be deported back to Mexico.

A recent raid in Iowa for identity theft turned up over 250 illegal immigrants and some 400 arrests.

The New York Times:

In 2007, 1,562 bills related to illegal immigration were introduced nationwide and 240 were enacted in 46 states, triple the number that passed in 2006, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. A new law in Mississippi makes it a felony for an illegal immigrant to hold a job. In Oklahoma, sheltering or transporting illegal immigrants is also a felony.

USA Today ran a story related to state crackdowns of illegal immigrants, with some states making it difficult for businesses and citizens to have any relations with illegals.

For some states, not checking to see if an employee is documented beyond a simple social security number check, which raids have proven to be stolen in some cases, is enough to cause some pretty steep fines. See here for a summarized listing of state-by-state laws.

State laws passed were items such as denying healthcare to children of undocumented individuals or providing emergency life-saving treatment only, denying bail to undocumented or illegal immigrants, requirement of legal status to obtain driver's license, denying state services such as child care and in state tuition rates or adult education and making it a $50,000 US dollar civil fine for counterfeiting documents.

For businesses, the laws go as far as denying contracts to those who employ illegals, requiring jails and businesses to verify legal status of all employees, limited unemployment benefits to legal immigrants and citizens.

The list goes on.

For the small Florida community, the new laws targeting identity theft left them vacant. One business owner claims he didn't know the 10 illegal immigrants working for him were not here legally, unlike he and his family who have been forced to close down their two restaurants and are now faced with serious problems finding employees.

They say that all employees presented social security numbers but those numbers were stolen from true citizens.

There has been some negative response to the state's taking of the matter in their own hands from supporters for the illegal immigrants. For example, witnesses to the raid say that police were fair and equal in checking the documentation of all employees but Hispanics claimed that police only targeted businesses with Hispanic employees, indicating they were profiling. A claim yet to be addressed with any type of lawsuit.

In Georgia, one task force inspector, George S. Collins, said that people were wondering why they were not doing the same, asking

“why we weren’t going to Wal-Mart and rounding up the Mexicans” — a comment Mr. Collins said was racist and offensive.

And offensive a statement, it was as the problem with illegal immigration isn't about being a certain race or culture, but rather coming into the country in a manner that is deceptive and against the law.

Citizens and police state that the problem with immigration is a two-fold issue in that immigrants do not get involved with the community in which they move and they do not make the effort or choose to learn the language.

Arizona has passed official legislation making English the official state language and with a high percentage of Hispanics, this will create some major issues for legal immigrants as well as illegal immigrants.

States are no longer waiting on Washington and are taking matters into their own hands, finding ways to deal with the issue of illegal immigration. In the case of identity theft where the raids busted many who were carrying stolen social security numbers provided to illegal immigrants who were working using those stolen identities, it makes one wonder: Is the identity of a true American of less value, such that someone can simply steal it away and use it for their own to stay under the radar?

Way to go Florida and Iowa.