Posted on 06/17/2005 9:18:36 PM PDT by bayourod
CARSON CITY, Nev. (AP) - Immigrants won a handful of protections from the 2005 Nevada Legislature, including measures that preserve their access to college scholarships, aim to improve their health and target human traffickers.
Advocates point to the battle over cutting back the cash-strapped Millennium Scholarship program as the most visible win for immigrants.
Republicans in the Senate had backed a plan that would have prohibited students without Social Security numbers from receiving the $10,000 college tuition awards. Late-night, hot-tempered negotiations blew up when Sen. Bob Beers, R-Las Vegas, asked Democrats if they wanted the money to go to "illegal aliens."
Although the issue - along with new grade point average requirements and semester credit limits - forced lawmakers into a special session, the compromise deal removed the Social Security provision and was approved unanimously in the Senate and by a large majority in the Assembly.
"These are children who've gone through the public school system and their parents are paying taxes," said Jan Gilbert of the Progressive Leadership Alliance of Nevada. "We believe they deserve (the scholarship) like other students."
A bill that tries to reduce harassment and discrimination in schools ranks high on American Civil Liberties Union lobbyist Laura Mijanovich's list of victories for immigrants. Mijanovich said immigrant children, particularly Muslim girls who wear headscarves, are often bullied, and school employees don't always deal with the complaints.
AB202 requires schools to have a uniform system of reporting harassment or bullying, and mandates staff training.
"They need to understand there's a lot of bias and stereotypes that need to be broken, and I believe this bill will help them deal with it in a more positive way," she said.
Attorney General Brian Sandoval introduced two bills aimed at protecting recent arrivals to the state, including SB456, which cracks down on human trafficking, slavery and forced labor.
Migrant workers in the construction and agricultural industries, and young men and women caught in the sex trade are the most common victims in Nevada, Chief Deputy Attorney General Gerald Gardner said.
The bill rewrites a Nevada law on involuntary servitude to include enslaving someone by confiscating their passport or threatening them with deportation.
"It gives us a far stronger tool to prosecute those trafficking in human slavery by allowing us to get them for physical and nonphysical threats," Gardner said. "It also helps us target the middle men, those who do the recruiting and harboring of trafficking victims."
Sandoval's other effort, which would have regulated businesses that advertise translation services but often dispense specious legal advice on naturalization, died in an Assembly committee.
AB490 ran into opposition from legal experts who argued the businesses were illegally practicing law and should be shut down, not regulated.
Assemblyman Mo Denis, D-Las Vegas was more successful with his proposal to bar notaries public from advertising with the Spanish translation "notario publico" - a common term for "lawyer" in some countries.
Lawmakers also created and funded an Office of Minority Health to coordinate programs to try to improve minorities' access to affordable health care.
Advocates were less successful in pushing a bill that would have required construction companies that have contracts with the state to recruit more minorities and women. Faced with industry opposition, the bill was rewritten as a resolution encouraging women and minorities to take advantage of opportunities in the field.
All that construction going on in the fastest-growing city in the U.S. Can't have expensive labor, ya know?/
Oh...you mean illegal aliens!
Nevada's legislature has voted more of the largess of her legal citizens to support illegal aliens, ensuring that more will flock there, further indebting the lawful citizens of the state. Hopefully, the lawful citizens of the state will have good sense enough to route these vipers out of their state capital!
For once, at least just once, I would like some cold hard facts that illegals are paying taxes. And I mean federal income tax, not gas tax or sales tax. How does the Progressive Leadership Alliance know that illegals are paying income tax when they don't even know if I am.
Not only construction, but hotel and restaurant workers.
In addition, Congress should immediately vote a change in the Law that any child born to an illegal alien on our shores is not granted citizenship but is deported with their parent(s) back to their country of origin.
How can you say one group should be deported simply because they are illegal, and then say that the law should be changed to make native born citizens illegal and call for them to be deported?
The Fourteenth Amendment (that's part of the U.S. Constitution) reads in part:
"All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States "
Instead of changing the Constitution to make one group illegal, why not just change a statute to make the other group legal? I think there may be something about "illegal" that you don't understand.
Taxes are not voluntary. Illegal immigrants have to pay them just like everyone else.
Employers who fail to withhold IRS taxes go to prison regularly. Employers who deduct less labor costs than standard for their business category get audited.
That does not mean I am against immigration...far from it. It just means that there must be an identifiable legal process and we must enforce it. It also means that we need to gain control of our borders, which is the only sane thing to do in this error of terror and warfare.
Now, I have only one issue with the 14th amendment. I do not believe it was ever intended to be a free ride for people breaking the law to get here just to take advantage of it. That needs, IMHO, to be rectified and the "law" the congress passed would have to take the form of a constitutional amendment that the people of the various states would vote on.
...and I'll bet you, if it were ever passed on to the states for ratification, it would pass.
No misunderstanding whatsoeve on my part there...just an opinion on how to address what, in my view, is a serious probblem...illegal aliens.
Presumably this means illegal immigrants, I get so ticked off at the way the media lumps all immigrants together.
The federal prisons are full of tax evaders.
Tax evaders are one thing, employers in prison for not paying taxes on illegal aliens was our point of controversy and your last statement doesn't back up your claim.
Those that left Cal to go to the deserts of Nevada, my sympathies.
The solution is obviously simple; just change the law to legalize the ones who are illegal.
The "what don't you understand about illegal" arguments will never convince anyone except those seeking validation of their beliefs.
I agree. The 14th amendment made sense when mass (legal) immigration was taking place (mostly) from europe in an age when birth certs and other docs were lost, unavailable or maybe never issued in the countries of origin. Fast forward to today and we get the amazing images of women in labor lurching across the bridge to Laredo or similar so their baby can be born on US soil. It should be changed to say citizens (only) or citizens and the children of non-citizens legally present or something like that i.e. children of green card holders would be covered.
Employers who fail to make witholding payments are tax evaders.
I'll agree to that statement. However, in referring to failure to pay taxes from employers of illegal aliens, you said that the prisons are full of them. Proof?
The only answer is to have a workable set of legal imigration laws, and then enforce them. That means deporting the illegals and coming down on the people who employ them.
And, OBTW, I never said anything about "what you don't understand about illegals"...if I remember correctly in fact, in this discussion it was you that indicated to me that I did not understand illegal.
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