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Ohio lawmakers push tougher illegal immigration laws
COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — Ohio lawmakers and local officials frustrated by what they call federal government inaction on illegal immigration are pushing for stronger enforcement laws and are demanding that employers do more to prove their workers have legal status.
An investigation by The Columbus Dispatch found that Ohio isn’t alone. Oklahoma passed a law last year intended to drive away illegal immigrants, and similar get-tough bills have since been enacted or introduced in at least a dozen other states, the newspaper reported.
Illegal immigrants have had their way in Ohio for too long, said Steve Salvi, a northeast Ohio paralegal who runs a Web site on the hot button issue.
“Now there’s some growing opposition,” he said. “They need to respect our laws.”
The federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement has ramped up its presence in Ohio in the last year by quadrupling the number of its agents and tripling the number of deportations.
But people like Salvi believe state and local government officials need to also do more. A recent push in Ohio for new laws comes after a Quinnipiac University poll in November found that nearly two-thirds of state residents considered illegal immigration to be a “very serious problem.”
One bill introduced in the state Legislature would make English Ohio’s official language. Another would grant local police the authority to investigate immigration violations, normally a federal duty.
State Rep. Courtney Combs, a Fairfield Republican who’s been outspoken in efforts to try to curb illegal immigration, has proposed a far-reaching bill that would require everyone — including U.S. citizens — to prove they live here legally when applying to college or for a job or an apartment.
The bill also would penalize employers who hire illegal workers, jail those who house or transport illegal immigrants and bar teenagers without visas from tax-funded benefits such as routine medical care.
Such efforts are misdirected, said Ezra Escudero, director of the Ohio’s Commission on Hispanic/Latino Affairs. “Ohio faces too many other challenges. Why do we want to scare so many people away?”
But Combs believes that the longer illegal immigration continues unchecked in Ohio, the worse the problem will get.
“We’re just getting overrun,” he said.
Democratic Gov. Ted Strickland said he’s worried about the consequences of the developing patchwork of state laws.
“This is an issue that cries out for a federal solution so there can be consistency,” the former congressman said. “We can’t have 50 different sets of laws.”
In Oklahoma, about 25,000 Latino immigrants have left the Tulsa area since the state’s law was passed. But about 3,600 poor children in the state — most of them nonimmigrants — were booted from a government health care program because of problems with their Social Security numbers.
In Pennsylvania, a tomato farmer closed his 700-acre operation because crackdowns drove away too many workers. And in Virginia, police feared that immigrants who witnessed a slaying didn’t come forward because of deportation fears.
In Tulsa, businesses won a federal injunction against provisions in the Oklahoma’s bill that call for employers to prove workers legally live in the U.S.
The bill’s sponsor, Republican state Rep. Randy Terrill, said he’s undeterred and encouraged that other states are pushing forward on similar measures.
“It’s attrition through an enforcement approach to solving illegal immigration,” he said.
