Do you think it might happen..........

[chiefhuntr]

From my local paper today..

http://www.showmenews.com/2007/Jan/20070124News010.asp

JEFFERSON CITY - Two lawmakers unleashed a comprehensive bill to deal with illegal immigration in Missouri, a measure that one of the sponsors calls the most complete legislation of its ilk to be introduced in a state legislature.

The bill, sponsored by state Sen. Tim Green, D-St. Louis, and state Sen. Chris Koster, R-Harrisonville, cracks down on illegal immigrants in the workplace, rental property and in the classroom.

Koster said the bill would be a "gut-check proposal" for politicians who often speak about immigration policy but don’t propose meaningful solutions.

"The proposal is right there in the middle between what politicians say and what politicians do," Koster said. "And if people want to be serious about addressing the problem of illegal immigration in the state of Missouri, my belief is that this is a gutsy and intelligent place to begin."

The legislation would force Missouri businesses to conform to the Department of Homeland Security Basic Pilot Program, which confirms the legal status of employees. Every company in the state would have to show proof that they have signed on to the program when applying for a business license.

Koster said that the portion of the bill is in response to the growing "addiction" certain industries have to illegal workers. He said it is "a slap in the face to the American workforce" to argue that U.S. citizens don’t want to take jobs now done by illegal workers.

"Many of the industries that now have employed essentially a cheap, illegal workforce used to be actually done by Americans," Koster said. "They used to be what we referred to as good-paying jobs. To say that Americans don’t want to do roofing work is absolutely ridiculous because for 190 years Americans did roofing work."

One of the more controversial aspects of the Koster-Green bill is a ban on illegal immigrants from renting property. A similar ordinance passed recently in Valley Park received national attention. But Koster said property rental is at the root of the illegal immigration issue.

"The economic pulls of illegal immigration are not dissimilar to those that apply to prostitution or the sale of drugs," Koster said. "If there is no prostitute working on a certain corner, there will be no johns driving around that corner. If there are no drugs being sold in a certain schoolyard, there will be no drug dealers in that schoolyard. If we eliminate the lure of jobs and housing, there will be no reason to come to Missouri illegally."

The bill also bans illegal immigrants from attending a state college or university, forces law enforcement officials to check the legal status of every detainee and bars social welfare funds - such as food stamps - from going to illegal immigrants.


Now Im betting that this wil go nowhere but one can always hope.

[mobrien316]

... forces law enforcement officials to check the legal status of every detainee ...

We do this already and it's a good idea.

However, what routinely happens is we pick someone up, run them, and find they have an ICE warrant. Since it's after hours we call the New Hampshire office, they confirm the warrant and we toss them in a cell until the next business day. This means we take an officer off the road to watch the prisoner, sometimes from Friday evening to Monday morning.

On Monday we call the New Haven (CT) ICE office and they will speak with the prisoner on the phone for a few minutes, give them a court date, and tell us to release them.

I heard there was only fifteen ICE agents in Connecticut (or some other ridiculously low number) so I understand why this happens, and I'm not blaming them.

But until there is sufficient money allocated to do something with the illegals that are identified it doesn't do a whole lot of good to identify them.

[bangora70]

We could use the trillions of dollars we are now useing to have our troops oversees for this if our great president would figure out reforming that country would be like shoveing a diamond up a hogs @$$. Yes we should have gone there, but yes we should have long since been home.