State and local lawmakers usually divided on immigration reform agree on one thing: The federal government has to fix the system.
State legislatures around the country are looking at different ways to respond to the public’s concern in what one Maryland lawmaker called a Band-Aid approach. Reform has to start at the top because the federal government determines who can stay in the country legally, lawmakers agreed.
“We’ve done everything we can,” said Virginia Del. David Albo, R-Fairfax, who has shepherded through several state laws making it harder on illegal immigrants. “The federal government needs to step up and solve the problem.”
In 2006, more than 400 bills related to immigrants are being considered in 43 states in a range of policy arenas, including health care, employment, identification, human trafficking and education, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.
Virginia has some of the strictest immigration laws on the books and was the first state to prevent illegal immigrants from getting driver’s licenses. Maryland remains one of 10 states that allows undocumented immigrants to get driver’s licenses.
So far in 2006, more than 40 bills were introduced in the Virginia General Assembly to crack down on illegal immigrants. Some of those bills were redundant and designed to inflame anti-immigrant emotions, said Arlington County Board Member Walter Tejada, also a member of the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments.
“We are all frustrated at the local level,” Tejada said.
Congress is considering legislation that would criminalize the 11 million illegal immigrants in the country and another bill that would give them authority to live in the United States with a chance at becoming citizens.
Opponents of illegal immigration say they are concerned about the costs of public services immigrants use at the expense of taxpayers. Albo estimated illegal immigrants cost Fairfax taxpayers millions of dollars a year.
Now only federal law enforcement officers can arrest and deport an undocumented immigrant unless that person has committed a felony or has already been deported once.
