Yesterday, the Charleston Post and Courier reported that the South Carolina House of Representatives voted to approve a bill that would require state and local law enforcement to check a person's immigration status during arrests and routine traffic stops if an officer suspects that person is in the country illegally. It is expected that Gov. Nikki Haley will sign the bill.
South Carolina joins about thirty states that are considering comprehensive illegal immigration reform bills, many of which give law enforcement the right to check the status of people that they come in contact with in arrests and traffic stops.
The article lists some of the major provisions of the bill:
--Determining what documents will be acceptable to prove immigration status or citizenship.
--Allowing the state Department of Labor, Licensing and Regulation to issue new fines between $15,000 and $50,000 to businesses that repeatedly break the 2008 law.
--Whether to add a $5 fee on international wire transfers of up to $500 and a 1 percent fee on transfers of more than $500.
The article reports:
"An often cited 2010 study by the Federation of American Immigration Reform estimates that illegal immigrants cost the state $391 million annually, primarily in social services."
We need controlled legal immigration (and more of it). One of the reasons for the amount of illegal immigration that we have is that the government has so entangled the legal immigration process in red tape that it is nearly impossible (and expensive and time-consuming) to get through it. What we need is a sensible and easy to understand immigration process and an end to illegal immigration.
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