Posted on 07/01/2004 8:03:35 PM PDT by JackelopeBreeder
PHOENIX - Backers of limits on benefits to illegal residents turned in more than 190,000 signatures Thursday to put the issue before voters in November.
The tally is more than 68,000 more names than legally required. If no more than 35 percent are found invalid, it will qualify for the ballot.
But what the measure will mean if voters approve remains in doubt, with varying opinions not only between supporters and foes, but even among those who help gather the signatures.
That makes it impossible to know the fiscal effect if the proposal becomes law. In fact, organizers could not agree on how many people are in this state illegally.
One section is clear: It would require proof of citizenship before someone could register to vote. Those showing up at the polls then would have to provide acceptable identification.
The other spells out that state and local governments must verify someone's legal status in this country before providing any "public benefits," with the only exception being those that are federally mandated like education or emergency room care.
Rep. Russell Pearce, R-Mesa, a supporter of the Protect Arizona Now initiative, said that is limited to welfare and enrollment in the Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System, the state's health insurance program for the poor.
But PAN founder Kathy McKee said it is broader than that.
She said it will ensure that those not here legally are not entitled to the lower tuition at state universities available to Arizona residents. And McKee said it also might affect who gets free and reduced-prices lunches in schools.
"We're mandated to educate the children of illegal aliens, K through 12," she said. "But citizens are not mandated to provide them free breakfast, free lunch, free after-school programs, free a lot of these other things."
Alfredo Gutierrez, who is leading the opposition to the measure, said even that definition likely is too narrow. He noted that the initiative, while being added to the welfare code, does not define "public benefit."
"If one reads that explicitly as a layman would, that includes all public benefits, from library cards to public safety, and everything in between," said Gutierrez, chairman of the Statue of Liberty Coalition. "If they meant to say that - and these are reasonably intelligent people, most of whom can read or write, they could have explicitly stated that, and they did not."
Representatives from both AHCCCS and the state Department of Economic Security say there are no illegal entrants in either program because the agencies screen for legal residency.
Pearce, however, said his own conversations with state employees, convinces him otherwise. He said they tell him the state accepts documents which are questionable at best.
The provision on public benefits also would make it a misdemeanor for any state or local employee to fail to report illegal residents.
Pearce said the public is demanding the changes. "They want their places of election protected... and they want their tax dollars protected from fraud," he said.
He guessed the number of people in Arizona illegally at somewhere around 500,000, close to 10 percent of the state's population; McKee put the figure at about a million.
That would amount to nearly one person out of every five of the 5.5 million people estimated by the U.S. Census Bureau. But McKee said she doesn't believe the census numbers because those not here legally avoid federal employees.
Gutierrez said the provision on public employees reporting illegal immigrants "is going to make criminals out of most state employees."
Expect shrieks of outrage starting tomorrow.
Ping to the tossing of the gauntlet!
JB, I'll see your guantlet ping and raise you a border ping!!
I had a Republican Party pollster call me tonight to see who I was likely to vote for in the Primary and what issues I considered the most important. Of course, my #1 issue was uncontrolled illegal immigration!
I hope to see it in our loco leftist, pro-illegal newspaper. I love it when they're outraged. It means we won a battle.
Oh my gosh...tell me it isn't so, you, you ...animals! [/sarcasm]
It doesn't matter if it passes. Some ACLU commie liar will take it before some liberal holier than thou penguin who will cast aside the voters wishes and tell them they don't know enough to determine what is best for the illegals in AZ
PING
WTG ARizona! It's a start. I expect you're right about the shrieking and the papers will be full of hardluck stories of how these poor people just don't know what they're going to do...all model citizens of course.
If they have to be educated and there is a free lunch, breakfast and dinner program offered by the school, obviously their lower or lack of income gets them qualified for that too.
Bound to happen, Cap'n. But this one was crafted very carefully, then studied and polished for months by some of this country's best legal scholars. This wasn't a weekend project. In essence, all it does is to require enforcement of existing laws and the Arizona Constitution.
You could be right but as JB said, it was carefully crafted. We'll see.
Neil... PINGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG
From today's Douglas Dispatch, just down the road from the JackelopeBreeder hacienda, comes a tale of a couple of model citizens.
Border Patrol agents in Douglas apprehended two convicted sex offenders Wednesday.
At about noon Manuel Guzman Vasquez, 31, of El Salvador, was caught by agents about 10 miles east of the Douglas Port of Entry, said Andy Adame, a spokesman for the Border Patrol's Tucson sector. Guzman Vasquez was processed through IAFIS, the patrol's fingerprint identification system and it identified him as a sex offender who had served a three-year sentence in Massachusetts, Adame said. Guzman Vasquez was charged with the rape of a child. In 1999 he was formally deported to El Salvador. He is now being charged with the illegal re-entry of an aggravated felon, Adame said.
More than six hours later agents caught another sex offender about 1.5 miles east of the Douglas Port of Entry. Victor Manuel Martinez, 42, of Honduras, was also identified by IAFIS as a sex offender. He had been arrested in Arlington, VA, in 2000 for taking indecent liberties with a child, Adame said. He served a five-year sentence before he was deported to Honduras in late 2002. He too is being charged with illegal re-entry of an aggravated felon.
Watch some judge overturn the election on some BS technicality if it passes. They've done it before in California and Oregon.
Imagine, 10 percent of the state are illegal aliens. What a damn disgrace. You would think every law maker and politician would be outraged at this wide spread lawlessness. But they aren't. I guess they are waiting until 25 percent of our entire country are filled with illegal aliens. Unbelievable.
There is no question about that, it will happen.
Any shriekers should be directed to http://www.kaet.asu.edu/horizon/poll/2003/9-23-03.htm
"A new statewide poll of registered voters conducted by KAET-TV/Channel 8 and the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Arizona State University between September 18-21, 2003... Seventy percent (70%) of those interviewed said they would strongly support (34%) or support (36%) the "Protect Arizona Now" initiative..."
They'll have a tough time of it. Severability is built into it. They'll have to kill it clause, by clause, by clause.
I hope you are correct.
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