Contact your State Representative to Stop Dangerous Immigration Bill (SB 335)

[IndianaGreen]

ACTION ALERT

*** Contact your State Representative to Stop Dangerous Immigration Bill ***

Bill:

The Indiana Senate recently passed Senate Bill 335 which authorizes the
Attorney General to shut down businesses that hire undocumented workers,
and designates state law enforcement officers to enforce federal immigration laws.
SB 335 now moves to the Indiana House of Representatives, which has until
February 27, 2008 to vote on it.

Action Needed:

Contact your state representative and urge them to oppose SB 335. Contact
information for state legislators is available by entering your zipcode at:
http://www.in.gov/apps/sos/legislator/search/map.jsp

Background:

While the expressed purpose of this bill is to protect taxpayers, legitimate commerce,
and workers from exploitation, its unintended impact would be to single out minorities
and immigrants and facilitate racial profiling, discrimination, and xenophobia (an
unreasonable fear of foreigners); phenomena that have already happened in other states
where similar measures have been adopted. If this bill passes, Indiana would be added to
the list of anti-immigrant states.

SB 335 is part of a nationwide movement for states to assume the federal
responsibility of immigration law. However, states cannot provide fair and legal means
for people to immigrate ? something the federal government must do. They can only
address the issue by trying to make life so miserable for undocumented workers that
staying is not tenable. In Indiana, the state has already gone after undocumented persons
by invalidating their drivers' licenses and vehicle registrations. Now the effort is to go
after their livelihood as well.

SB 335 must also be stopped because:

1. People's lives are at stake -- families have been established, children have
been born in the U.S. whose parents could face deportation; fear has gripped the
immigrant community, regardless of their legal status.

2. Economically, such a bill could be a disaster. Indiana's estimated 300,000
Hispanics ? documented and undocumented ? are thought to pay $200 million in state
and local taxes and provide $4.8 billion in buying power. It will cost the State of Indiana up to $100 million in incarceration of about 10,000 non-citizens. It would add 10,000 more homes and apartments to the already weak housing market; and would adversely
affect manufacturing, construction, agriculture and service industries.

3. Rounding up thousands of workers and shutting down hundreds of businesses is
a logistical and political nightmare.

4. Indiana police are already stressed and don't need this added responsibility;

5. Business leaders don't care to serve as an arm of the law;

6. Indiana does not face an immigration emergency. As the Indianapolis Star pointed
out, "Arizona felt compelled to act because its illegal immigrants quadrupled to more
than 500,000 in 10 years. Yet even there, after a month of implementation, second
thoughts are resounding. Indiana, with an estimated 1 percent of its population made
up of illegal immigrants, should watch a while before taking on job."

7.This bill sends a clear message of intolerance.


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Michiana Peace and Justice Coalition website:

http://community.michiana.org/justice/

[plantwomyn]

1. The financial impact pdf on this bill is huge.

Just to prosecute and house 70,000 would be 2 billion. If we have that kind of money laying around, let's vote on were to spend it. Oh wait that's right, it's more important to vote on gay marriage first.