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01-07-2011, 10:15 PM
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Joined in Jun 2009
182 posts
http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_theloo...gration-reform

Quote:
Bucking the trend of state lawmakers vowing to pass tougher immigration laws, a Utah state senator is working to enact a mini-version of comprehensive immigration reform that would only apply in her state. Sen. Luz Robles' bill would give work permits to illegal immigrants who pass background checks and take English and civics classes.

Immigration activists quoted in a positive write-up of the bill in the Deseret News said Utah would set an example for Congress if it passed the "unique" law. Robles told the paper she just wants a practical way to keep tabs on the illegal immigrants in Utah who are already working while clearing a path for them to be treated as full citizens.

But one group of pro-immigration-reform advocates tells The Lookout they are not so thrilled. The conservative evangelicals who have been pushing fellow Republicans to pass a path-to-citizenship law on the federal level question the state law's constitutionality.

"Its is a federal issue," Rev. Sammy Rodriguez, the leader of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference, told The Lookout on a conference call today. "I'm appreciative of her effort to push back on [Arizona-type] laws but nevertheless we really need a federal solution. If not, we're going to have Arizona-type laws in one part of the country and Utah-type laws in another part of the country."

"The states have no business meddling in federal law, I'm adamant about that," said Conservatives for Comprehensive Immigration Reform co-founder Robert Gittelson. Gittelson says he hopes the federal government would challenge the law in court if passed, just as it is currently fighting Arizona's SB1070 law.

So far, supporters of a crackdown on immigration enforcement have led the way in state-level debates. That's also been the case in Utah, where lawmakers tried to pass a copy of Arizona's law over the summer. On Wednesday, state legislators from five states announced they would try to redefine birthright citizenship to exclude children of illegal immigrants. They said they want to provoke the Supreme Court to rule on the issue, though many are alarmed at the politicians' proposal to issue a separate class of birth certificates to children of illegal immigrants.

After the death of the DREAM Act immigration bill in the lame-duck session, immigration activists vowed to take a page from advocates of harsher immigration enforcement and take their fight local. But as Gittelson suggests, as more states pass their own laws on either side of the immigration question, both camps might just end up spending a lot of money on doomed court battles.
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