A disastrous immigration policy

The state of Indiana is sprinting toward the wrong side of history.

Senate Bill 590 passed a Senate committee by a vote of 8-1 and appears to be headed for a vote in the Senate sometime this week. If enacted, the bill would require police officers to ask people they suspect of being in the United States illegally for proof to the contrary.

It’s not clear how most of the reactionary measures of this Arizona-style immigration bill would ever be implemented.

The bill would certainly waste the state’s time and money and would target a crucial segment of Indiana residents who, even if not here legally, make daily contributions to our cultural and economic welfare.

Considering what would happen if I were randomly asked to prove my citizenship illustrates one of the major problems of the bill.

I would not routinely be able to offer evidence that I am not an illegal immigrant.

Like most American citizens, I do not carry in my wallet documents the federal government recognizes as legitimate proofs of citizenship such as a birth certificate, a certificate of naturalization or a passport.

Probably to the shock of many SB-590 supporters, a driver’s license will not establish American citizenship.

Support for the bill also seems to rest upon the flawed notion that undocumented immigrants are the only people who would be asked to provide evidence of their legal residence.

n fact, American citizens have been victimized by overzealous immigration enforcement. Mark Lyttle, a mentally disabled American citizen of Puerto Rican descent living in North Carolina, was wrongfully deported to Mexico by the U.S. government.

Lyttle did not speak Spanish, never claimed to have been from Mexico and had even proven his citizenship by furnishing his social security number.

Most of the supporters of SB-590 simply do not know what they are calling for.

The bill also includes a provision that would force the state of Indiana to commission a study of the cost of services provided to illegal aliens and to bill the federal government for reimbursement.

Because it seems unlikely that the U.S. Congress would ever reimburse a state for such questionable figures, the provision will almost certainly cost more than it earns. That doesn’t exactly sound like fiscal conservatism to me.

More examples of the bill’s substantial expense abound from Arizona’s disastrous example.

Indiana will be sued if it enacts SB-590. The U.S. Department of Justice quickly took Arizona to court last year after its immigration law passed, challenging the constitutionality of a state-enforcing federal immigration law.

SB-590 is a vile law designed to target people on the basis of their race and the accent of their speech. It cannot be enforced, and Hoosiers should urge their state senators and representatives to abandon it before it has a more deleterious effect on the state’s residents and its public image.


E-mail: wallacen@indiana.edu