Arizona's GOP-held Senate has voted down five immigration bills that would have, among others, forced the U.S. Supreme Court to rule on the 14th Amendment. The state last year enacted a controversial immigration law allowing police to detain people suspected of being illegal immigrants.
Republicans split during the vote late Thursday, with some joining Democrats to defeat what critics said would require education and health professionals to become immigration law enforcers.
One bill, SB 1611, was a proposal from Republican Senate President Russell Pearce banning illegal immigrants from state universities and community colleges.
It also would have required kindergarten and grade schools to ask parents for documentation of the legal status of their children. Moreover, the bill would have prohibited aliens from driving in the state and buying a vehicle.
Pearce was the author of SB 1070, which was approved last year, heightening debate nationwide on how to institute meaningful immigration reform.
Two measures introduced by state Sen. Steve Smith related to medical treatment and education.
SB 1405 would have required hospital workers to report illegal immigrants and patients unable to provide proof of legal status. The bill does not deny medical care for aliens who need emergency care but would deny admission to those who do not need non-emergency service.
The Arizona Hospital and Healthcare Association had urged lawmakers to vote against SB 1405, warning that hospitals would be burdened to check the citizenship of all patents, which amounted to more than 3.4 million in 2009.
The group added that the bill would compromise medical care because patients, including children and the elderly, or their families would have to bring documentation, and the admission of urgent but non-emergency patients could quickly become an emergency situation without proper care. Hospitals also follow "pre-admit orders" from doctors seeking to expedite treatment for patients.
"Since pediatric and elderly institutionalized patients generally do not carry any of the identification," the association had said. "With an average length of stay of four days, many of these patients would be ready for discharge before the hospital can review and confirm the prescribed identifying documentation."
Smith's other proposal, SB 1406, requires the Department of Education to gather data on the legal status of students and submit reports on how much the state is spending to educate students who are illegal immigrants.
The two other bills rejected by the senators would have sought a U.S. Supreme Court ruling on the 14th Amendment, which grants birthright citizenship.
The Arizona Chamber of Commerce and Industry had made clear that it opposed all five bills, citing concerns among business leaders about another immigration controversy affecting their companies and employees.
Chamber president Glenn Hamer said in an op-ed that despite staying neutral during last year's passage of SB 1070, Arizona companies were directly affected by the law.
"Conventions were canceled, companies lost contracts, boycotts were carried out and the state’s image took a hit. There was an economic price to pay for Arizona going it alone," he said.
Hamer said he had received a letter signed by 60 business executives and another from 20 local chambers urging lawmakers not to redefine the concept of citizenship and to "instead direct its energy to pressing Congress for meaningful immigration reform."
"These chambers and executives are not part of some conspiracy to flood the U.S. workforce with cheap labor," he said. "It’s rare for individuals of such prominence to take such a public stance on a controversial issue, but it’s indicative of how damaging they believe passing these laws could be to Arizona’s future."
The five measures are part of a larger push by the GOP in several states to deny birthright citizenship to aliens. But the initiative in the Grand Canyon State faces particularly difficult questions, including the granting of citizenship to Native Americans only in 1924.
In the U.S. Senate, two lawmakers are pushing a resolution to "close a loophole" in the 14th Amendment. Under the proposal from Sens. Rand Paul (R-KY) and Paul Vitter (R-LA), a child born on U.S. soil must have at least a parent who is either naturalized, a legal citizen, an legal immigrant or active member of the military before citizenship is conferred.
The resolution from Paul and Vitter were introduced after the DREAM Act, a Democratic bill providing children of aliens a path to citizenship if they finish two years of either college or military service, failed in the Senate.
Despite having safeguards such as age limits and years of residency before the bill is enacted, Democrats had failed to gain enough support for the legislation.
Republicans had criticized the bill for giving amnesty to illegal immigrants and exacerbating the nation's fiscal problems. They had warned it would promote "chain migration" in spite of a provision banning students from sponsoring members of their extended family.
The bill's sponsor, Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL), had argued, "Young people were brought to the U.S. and should not be punished for their parents' choices."
Anti-Constitution Arizona GOP looses again.
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