This is the sixth session in which legislation has been introduced that would deny undocumented students access to higher education or deny in-state tuition even to such students who are trying to adjust their immigration status and who are Virginia taxpayers.

The bills have not passed for several good and compelling reasons.

First, the legislation is unnecessary.

There is little if any evidence that undocumented students are being admitted to four year colleges and no evidence that any are being granted in-state tuition. Those attending at out of state rates are, by law, paying the full cost of their education (i.e., there is no taxpayer subsidy) and they are not competing with in-state students for space.

Second, the legislation is anti-opportunity. It denies hope to children who are attending Virginia public schools and will lead to higher drop out rates and increased gang participation.

Finally, the legislation is at odds with Virginia's workforce needs which is why it is opposed by the Fairfax Chamber of Commerce and the Greater Washington Board of Trade, among others.

The General Assembly should reject this anti-immigrant, political brochure bill (and others like it sure to be introduced) again this year.

Current federal law requires all males between the ages of 18 and 25 living in the US to register for the draft and limits access to federal student aid to those who have registered.

The Selective Service System is encouraging all undocumented males between the ages of 18 and 25 living in the US to register for the draft as the law requires.

Here's what they say on their website, http://www.sss.gov/:

ATTENTION, UNDOCUMENTED MALES & IMMIGRANT SERVICING GROUPS!

If you are a man ages 18 through 25 and living in the U.S., then you must register with Selective Service. It’s the law. You can register at any U.S. Post Office and do not need a social security number. When you do obtain a social security number, let Selective Service know. Provide a copy of your new social security number card; being sure to include your complete name, date of birth, Selective Service registration number, and current mailing address; and mail to the Selective Service System, P.O. Box 94636, Palatine, IL 60094-4636.

Be sure to register before your 26th birthday. After that, it’s too late!

Selective Service does not collect any information which would indicate whether or not you are undocumented. You want to protect yourself for future U.S. citizenship and other government benefits and programs by registering with Selective Service. Do it today.

This bill would extend the requirement to prove (if you are a male between the ages of 18 and 25) that you have registered for the draft as a condition of admission to any Virginia public college or university (rather than just financial aid as is the case now).

This bill says that if a local government officials violates your civil rights (even in bad faith) while seeking (with or without adequate training)to enforce federal immigration laws, the officials should be absolutely immune from suit.

As introduced this bill goes well beyond making English the official language of the Commonwealth (which has been the law since 1994) and moves Virginia toward being an English only state. As such, the bill clearly focuses on people whose first language is other than English, regardless of whether such individuals are citizens, international tourists or businesspeople or persons in the country without authority. The bill would bar the Virginia tourism agency from making literature available to international visitors in languages other than English, the Virginia Economic Development Partnership from producing information for international businesses in languages other than English and jeopardize federal funding for any federally funded program that is required to provide program access for persons with limited English proficiency.

This bill is not about whether someone is in the United States legally. Its effect clearly will be to send the message that Virginia does not want to be inclusive of people whose first language is other than English and whose proficiency in their second language is still developing.

For a discussion of this bill and HB 104, read the entry on my blog, ChangeServant.

For a discussion of this bill and HB 91, read the entry on my blog, ChangeServant.

This is the sixth session in which legislation has been introduced that would deny undocumented students access to higher education or deny in-state tuition even to such students who are trying to adjust their immigration status and who are Virginia taxpayers.

The bills have not passed for several good and compelling reasons.

First, the legislation is unnecessary.

There is little if any evidence that undocumented students are being admitted to four year colleges and no evidence that any are being granted in-state tuition. Those attending at out of state rates are, by law, paying the full cost of their education (i.e., there is no taxpayer subsidy) and they are not competing with in-state students for space.

Second, the legislation is anti-opportunity. It denies hope to children who are attending Virginia public schools and will lead to higher drop out rates and increased gang participation.

Finally, the legislation is at odds with Virginia's workforce needs which is why it is opposed by the Fairfax Chamber of Commerce and the Greater Washington Board of Trade, among others.

The General Assembly should reject this anti-immigrant, political brochure bill (and others like it sure to be introduced) again this year.

There is no such thing as a "citizen of the Commonwealth," and it is unclear what the patron's intent is here nor why such legislation is needed.

Update: The bill was amended to "citizen of the United States" in committee and specific documents are not required to prove citizenship, excluding a passport. No rationale was offered for excluding lawful permanent residents and others in the US legally from use of the court system for name changes. It would be difficult to articulate a rational basis sufficient to defend the statute as now written from a constitutional attack.

This is another of the bills introduced this session that demonstrate that much of the immigration debate is not, in fact, about lawful presence, but is about status as an immigrant, documented or undocumented.

This is another piece of legislation that seeks to turn untrained members of the business community into immigration enforcement officers and to impose new regulatory and paperwork burdens on small businesses that are not justified by a corresponding benefit.

No one can currently get a mortgage without a social security number. Only citizens and lawful permanent residents can legally get social security numbers.

Mortgage lenders are not trained to detemine what someone's legal status is nor to ascertain whether documents presented are fraudulent.

Before we impose additional paperwork burdens and personnel and training requirements on banks and small businesses, there should, at least, be some evidence that doing so will yield specific defined positive benefits that outweigh the regulatory costs imposed.

This bill says that if a state government officials violates your civil rights (even in bad faith) while seeking (with or without adequate training)to enforce federal immigration laws, the officials should be absolutely immune from suit.

As introduced, this bill would deny driver's licenses to people who are lawful permanent residents (green card holders), students lawfully here on visas, workers lawfully here on visas, people lawfully here on temporary protected status, people lawfully here as asylees, among others. This would clearly be anti-immigrant and unconstitutional.

The patron says, however, that was not his intent. Rather, he intends to extend to all licenses granted prior to January 1, 2004, the same legal presence requirements that apply to licenses issued after that date.

Even if Delegate Marshall amends the bill to accomplish this more limited objective, this bill will only lead to increased burdens and costs for all Virginia taxpayers because it will eliminate all mail and online renewals.

It will also make our roads less safe because we will be discouraging rather than encouraging people to receive training, learn our laws and obtain driver's licenses.

There is no evidence that imposing the greater burdens or costs on all Virginians will enhance public safety in any measurable way.

This bill would set up a division within the Department of State Police with a minimum of 100 officers the sole purpose of which shall be to "conduct investigations related to the failure by individuals to provide evidence or proof of legal presence in the Commonwealth when required by law." The cost of this division would be $15 million in the first year and $10 million in every succeeding year. This cost does not include the cost of incarcerating anyone investigated and prosecuted as a result of activities by this division.

The bill would divert scarce resources from other law enforcement activities directly related to the protection of life and property, and would make us all less safe by chilling the willingness of members of immigrant communities to cooperate with the police in the investigation and prosecution of criminal acts.

This is a positive bill that will enhance public safety by assuring crime victims and witnesses to crime that they won't face immigration inquiries if they come forward to cooperate with police in getting criminals out of our communities.

This is the second time around for this bill, which was defeated in the House of Delegates when it was first introduced in 2005. Because any state or local agency that receives one dime of federal funds (and that includes DMV) must under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act provide program access to persons with limited English proficiency, this bill clearly violates federal law.

Here's the regulatory language:
Where a significant number or proportion of the population eligible to be served or likely to be directly affected by a federally assisted program (e.g., affected by relocation) needs service or information in a language other than English in order effectively to be informed of or to participate in the program, the recipient shall take reasonable steps, considering the scope of the program and the size and concentration of such population, to provide information in appropriate languages to such persons. This requirement applies with regard to written material of the type which is ordinarily distributed to the public. 28 C.F.R. 42.405(d)(1).

A relatively large number of legally present Virginians currently take the driver's test in a language other than English.

This bill is not about "illegal immigrants" since none can qualify to take the driver's test.

It is simply about making Virginia a less welcoming place for foreign born residents whose first language is a language other than English.

This is a positive bill that recognizes that the fees for naturalization are becoming prohibitively expensive for many legal immigrants on the path to citizenship.

This is a positive bill that will relieve some of the fiscal stress on localities with larger numbers of students with limited English proficiency.

This bill gives officers on the street unfettered discretion either to arrest or summons a person who is alleged to be committing a class 2 or class 1 misdemeanor. Currently, state law says that an officer must issue a summons unless he reasonably believes that the person involved is a danger to self or others, won't stop committing the alleged offense or won't show up in response to the summons. There is no predicate factual basis for making this radical change in the law, nor is there any means by which the discretionary action by officers can be tracked to determine if there is evidence of biased-based policing resulting from this delegation of unguided decision-making.

An identical proposal was defeated in the legislature last year, and it should be defeated again this year.

This is a positive bill that will relieve some of the fiscal stress on localities with larger numbers of students with limited English proficiency.

The problem with this bill as passed is that it allows cities and towns to make individualized (and probably inconsistent) judgments about what constitutes a safety hazard when evaluating whether to prohibit loitering. The old law allowed the Commissioner of Transportation to establish a single statewide standard for when bridges would be posted as no loitering, and the initial proposal would only have allowed the Commissioner to extend safety bans to public rights of way.

Virginia law (see below) states that, by driving on our roads, you have consented to a breath test if arrested for drunk or drugged driving. The law also says that, if a blood test is to be administered, prior to the test you are to be advised of certain rights. Delegate Griffith wants to add language (see underlined) that would say that it's okay if you don't understand your rights if you don't speak English well. That just doesn't seem fair, does it? And, it clearly isn't about whether you are here legally or not, is it?

B. Any person so arrested for a violation of clause (i) or (ii) of § 18.2-266 or both, § 18.2-266.1 or subsection B of § 18.2-272 or of a similar ordinance shall submit to a breath test. If the breath test is unavailable or the person is physically unable to submit to the breath test, a blood test shall be given. The accused shall, prior to administration of the test, be advised by the person administering the test that he has the right to observe the process of analysis and to see the blood-alcohol reading on the equipment used to perform the breath test. If the equipment automatically produces a written printout of the breath test result, the printout, or a copy, shall be given to the accused.

The provisions of this section shall apply notwithstanding the inability of the person so arrested to comprehend, because of his state of inebriation or inability to understand the English language, the advisement of the person administering the test.

This bill likely violates Title VI of the Civil Rights Act and a related executive order that require programs receiving federal funds, like the court system, to ensure program access for persons with limited English proficiency. Proposals along this line applicable to both persons with language issues and those with hearing disabilities have been offered several times in past years, and have been defeated each time, usually in committee.

The General Assembly should vote NO again this year on this bill that can't be said to be about legal status, since it applies to everyone with limited English language skills regardless of citizenship.

P.S. If English is your first language, and you've ever tried to function effectively in your second language when the stakes are high and you are under stress, you might appreciate why someone facing serious charges might need to have an interpreter in order to ensure that he/she can fully comprehend what's happening and participate effectively in his/her defense.

We already have trouble with people accessing court records to steal SSN's and other identifiers for criminal purposes. What possible rationale could there be (sufficient to override federal law prohibiting SSN requirements by state/local agencies) for requiring a SSN on a marriage license.

Even if, as I suspect, this is viewed as a way to keep people not lawfully present from getting married in Virginia, the fact is that there are any number of people lawfully in the US who won't have SSN's, like, for example, an international couple who believes our state slogan (Virginia is for Lovers) and comes here to get married in a destination wedding.

This bill will result in a potential compromise of our privacy without a corresponding benefit, and it should be defeated.

This is the sixth session in which legislation has been introduced that would deny undocumented students access to higher education or deny in-state tuition even to such students who are trying to adjust their immigration status and who are Virginia taxpayers.

The bills have not passed for several good and compelling reasons.

First, the legislation is unnecessary.

There is little if any evidence that undocumented students are being admitted to four year colleges and no evidence that any are being granted in-state tuition. Those attending at out of state rates are, by law, paying the full cost of their education (i.e., there is no taxpayer subsidy) and they are not competing with in-state students for space.

Second, the legislation is anti-opportunity. It denies hope to children who are attending Virginia public schools and will lead to higher drop out rates and increased gang participation.

Finally, the legislation is at odds with Virginia's workforce needs which is why it is opposed by the Fairfax Chamber of Commerce and the Greater Washington Board of Trade, among others.

The General Assembly should reject this anti-immigrant, political brochure bill (and others like it sure to be introduced) again this year.

This bill will help address concerns expressed about the exploitation of undocumented workers to the advantage of unscrupulous employers and to the detriment of authorized workers by strengthening the criminal sanctions for aggregious wage law violations.

The bill will help level the economic playing field for employers and workers who play by the rules and mitigate the incentive currently present for employers to hire undocumented workers who are perceived to be without the power or interest to demand fair wages.

This is a positive bill that will relieve some of the fiscal stress on localities with larger numbers of students with limited English proficiency.

This bill is a positive bill that would implement one of the recommendations in the report on acclimation of the foreign born contained in the 2004 Report of the Joint Legislative Audit and Review Commission.

This bill says that "discharging or taking other employment-related action with regard to an employee on the basis of the employee's failure or refusal to comply with a requirement of the employer that English be spoken or used while at work shall not be deemed to constitute discrimination on the basis of national origin" prohibited by state law.

Since only lawfully present individuals can qualify legally to work, this legislation has nothing to do with the legal status of the individuals involved.

This change in the law would allow an employer to fire someone who has a conversation with a colleague in the lunchroom or takes a cell phone call from a relative while on a break.

The law in Virginia, as an employment at will state, is that an employer can discharge an employee for no reason as long as the reason isn't discriminatory based on a prohibited classification. The law should remain unchanged.

Current Virginia law makes unauthorized workers ineligible for unemployment compensation benefits. This study may lead to additional limits on the ability of legal, seasonal workers to claim benefits.

There is a reason that Illinois law currently prohibits the use of eVerify by Illinois employers. The system remains a "pilot program" because of underfunding and because of concerns about the reliability of the information in the system. Until the federal government appropriates sufficient funds to ensure that the system is adequately funded and staffed and applies to all employers nationally without exception, Virginia should not mandate the system's use by Virginia employers.

Because not every locality charges a BPOL tax, this bill would set up a system in which small business owners in only some localities would bear the additional burden of complying with a certification requirement for which no evidence of either efficacy or necessity has been presented.

This is the sixth session in which legislation has been introduced that would deny undocumented students access to higher education or deny in-state tuition even to such students who are trying to adjust their immigration status and who are Virginia taxpayers.

The bills have not passed for several good and compelling reasons.

First, the legislation is unnecessary.

There is little if any evidence that undocumented students are being admitted to four year colleges and no evidence that any are being granted in-state tuition. Those attending at out of state rates are, by law, paying the full cost of their education (i.e., there is no taxpayer subsidy) and they are not competing with in-state students for space.

Second, the legislation is anti-opportunity. It denies hope to children who are attending Virginia public schools and will lead to higher drop out rates and increased gang participation.

Finally, the legislation is at odds with Virginia's workforce needs which is why it is opposed by the Fairfax Chamber of Commerce and the Greater Washington Board of Trade, among others.

The General Assembly should reject this anti-immigrant, political brochure bill (and others like it sure to be introduced) again this year.

This is a positive bill that will enhance public safety by assuring crime victims and witnesses to crime that they won't face immigration inquiries if they come forward to cooperate with police in getting criminals out of our communities.

This is a positive bill that will relieve some of the fiscal stress on localities with larger numbers of students with limited English proficiency.

This is a positive bill that will enhance public safety by assuring crime victims and witnesses to crime that they won't face immigration inquiries if they come forward to cooperate with police in getting criminals out of our communities.

This bill codifies an Attorney General's opinion that individuals who are not in the United States legally cannot establish domicile in Virginia and, therefore, cannot qualify for in-state tuition.

It also carves out a very narrow exception to the general rule for students who have lived in Virginia for three years, have graduated from Virginia schools, have paid income taxes in Virginia and have a pending application to adjust status. A student who meets all of these requirements could qualify for in-state tuition but only if there is a change in federal law that would remove the legal argument that creating such and exception would expose Virginia to the possiblity that it would have to also grant in-state tuition to any citizen applying from any state.