Assembly Republicans Introduce Anti-Immigrant Package of Bills: Isolationist and Out Of Step With California And National Publi

[courtesy of California Progress Report]

By Gil Cedillo

California State Senator

Four weeks after the deadline to introduce legislation, a group of Republican Assemblymembers have revealed a package of twenty anti-immigrant bills touted as “common sense” despite an obviously biased intent. Many of the proposals are reruns of anti-immigrant legislation that have either been questioned in legal courts or unable to garner majority support, even among other Republican legislators.

The revelation of the anti-immigrant package coincides with the launch of a national clearinghouse for refuting immigration falsehoods entitled “Truth in Immigration.” Sponsored by the Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund (MALDEF), the website seeks to “refute legal and factual inaccuracies about immigrants and/or Latinos” noting that “hateful dialogue threatens to drown out reasonable and thoughtful perspectives on immigration reform and other key policy issues.”

As Vice Chair of the Latino Caucus I believe this is a blatant discriminatory action that perpetuates the hysteria. We want to put those Draconian days in California behind us. Our focus should not be based on ethnicity but on immigrants’ activity and their conduct which point to home and business ownership, a desire for higher education and safe communities. Poll after poll, including a Fox News poll in September 2007, show national opinion favoring a path to earned citizenship by as much as 70% and yet California Republicans seem immovable on this topic. As with their unyielding opposition to budget compromise, it poisons policy discussions and public opinion and that is the great loss.

The Chair of the California Legislative Latino Caucus, Assemblymember Joe Coto said that at a time when California is facing an economic deficit, we must not lack in working together to come up with real solutions and not scapegoat once again the immigrant undocumented community. The future of our state lies on our student body and workforce we must not be divisive in our common good and giving way to the rhetoric. The Latino Caucus will vigorously reject these misguided proposals in the State Legislature.

The Republican package assumes, without evidence, that immigrants are a burden to the state and cost billions of dollars in prison costs and health care despite recent non-partisan studies demonstrating otherwise. The very premises of these arguments are flawed. The bills purport to deal with several issues -- higher costs associated with healthcare services, incarceration, and taxes -- which have been refuted by research, federal and state government analysis.