Under President Ronald Reagan Alejandra’s father was granted amnesty in 1986. Alejandra, her mom and little brother then began the process to get legal status in the United States, since they now had a family member with legal status in the country. She might not have had the same opportunities for legal status had she started her application today.
Lauren Reinhold, an immigration lawyer in Lawrence, Kans., said there were limited forms of relief for undocumented immigrants today. She said the limited number of visas made it more difficult to enter the country legally, and family members would just cross the border illegally because it was easier and faster.
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“They are just scared,” Reinhold said. “They are just hoping for change in the law. They are not trying to put one over on America; they are not trying to be illegal. They migrated for whatever reason, usually for economic reasons.”
She said her heart broke for the people who came to the United States as children with their parents. She has had several young adults come in to her office for whom she can’t help.
“There are people everywhere in that situation,” Reinhold said. “It might not always be the people you expect. It may be someone who speaks accent-less English because their parent brought them here as a child.”
Alejandra has no accent. She goes by the name “Alex” to her colleagues. And when she is out recruiting, some students are surprised that she speaks Spanish, like the kids making fun of her at Ulysses.
“We need to pass a reform to alleviate the concern of undocumented immigrants. We need to give them a chance to become documented. It's the only thing that will fix it.”
Lauren Reinhold, Immigration Attorney
“I’m not the typical Hispanic immigrant girl from western Kansas,” Alejandra said. “I get a lot of phone calls and I talk to a lot of students that say ‘I’m undocumented and my teachers are telling me that I can’t do anything.’”
Reinhold said immigration reform should focus on the people.
“We need to pass a reform to alleviate the concern of undocumented immigrants,” Reinhold said. “We need to give them a chance to become documented. It’s the only thing that will fix it.”
Congress tried and failed to pass immigration reform at the federal level. Now many states, including Kansas, are working to pass reform at the state level. The Kansas Immigration Enforcement and Reform Act has been making its way through the Kansas Legislature in the 2008 session.
House Bill 2836 and Senate Bill 458 were the first immigration reform bills considered by the Kansas Legislature. The bills required business owners to check the immigration status of employees, allowed state and local authorities to enforce federal immigration law, revoked in-state tuition for undocumented students, and prohibited undocumented immigrants from receiving state services. HB 2836 died in committee in early February. SB 458 was referred to the House Federal and State Affairs Committee for amendments before the legislative session recessed for spring break.
State Representative Lance Kinzer (R-Olathe), one of the sponsors of HB 2836, said reform was needed because Kansas was a magnet for undocumented immigrant workers.
“The bottom line is that, when people come here in violation of existing laws in the United States, it is particularly unfair to those who are taking time and effort and patience to go through the law that we have set up,” Kinzer said. “There is room to criticize existing law, but the fact that it may be frustrating in some ways is not an excuse to ignore it.”
Kinzer said he voted against the reform after it was gutted by the committees, saying it no longer included meaningful immigration reform. One of his main complaints was the omission of e-verify, which would have required employers to use a federal database to check employees immigration status before hiring. He was also concerned about prohibitions against the removal of in-state tuition and state services, and the remittance of strong penalties for anyone who violated immigration laws.
The bill went through to the Committee on Federal and State Affairs for amendments just before the session was dismissed for spring break. The Kansas legislature will reconvene April 30 to decide the final language of the bill and vote on it.
Senate Bill 329, a compromise bill between the two original pieces of legislation, was blocked by a 57 yea / 59 nay vote, with the majority republicans voting against it. When the legislators reconvene April 30, SB 329 will continue in the House conference committee then go back for a final vote.
“There is a lot of hateful rhetoric, stereotyping and misjudgment. It really affects the solidarity of our community and it is hurtful to the immigrant community.”
Kara Lineweber, El Centro Inc.
Kara Lineweber, Public Policy Associate at El Centro, Inc., an organization that addresses the needs and seeks to improve the lives of Kansas City’s Hispanic residents, lobbies in Topeka to educate senators about the unintended effects the reform could have on the immigrant population in Kansas. She said the issue was complex; the biggest issue was a lack of communication about the benefits immigrants bring to the state of Kansas.
“I think emotions are so high right now and this debate is so highly charged, people are getting tidbits of information and running with them,” Lineweber said. “People are craving an answer to the problem.”
Lineweber said she was pleased that the leadership in the Kansas legislature had not made a hasty decision. A lot of immigrant families in Kansas are of mixed status; for example, a husband who had legal status, a wife who didn’t and a child who was a citizen. She said if the final bill were punitive, there could be a mass exodus of immigrants to some other state, similar to what happened in Oklahoma after the state passed its own immigration reform. She said the issue should be dealt with at the federal level.
“There is a lot of hateful rhetoric, stereotyping and misjudgment,” Lineweber said. “It really affects the solidarity of our community and it is hurtful to the immigrant community.”
When Alejandra first moved to Hugoton, Kans., her family was one of the few Mexican families in town. She said there were more there now, but she remembered racist community members.
“They were going to build this park and then they didn’t because they wanted to keep the Mexican kids out,” Alejandra said.
Ed Hayes, director of Minutemen civil defense corps Heart of America Chapter in Kansas City and surrounding areas, testified for the immigration reform bill. He said Kansas had “magnets” that drew undocumented immigrants, and that employers and landlords should be fined or arrested if they continued to break immigration laws.
He said one of the sponsors of the original legislation was a member of the Minutemen, but he refused to identify that Kansas legislator.
Hayes said some of the cost associated with undocumented immigrants included social services and education. He also said undocumented immigrants were killing Americans by bringing in diseases and by drunk driving.
“At least the American (drunk driver) is supposed to be here,” Hayes said. “The illegal is not supposed be here. If the illegals weren’t here, it wouldn’t happen; these people would all be alive and their families would still have them.”
