Senate panel is immigration bill graveyard

On Wednesday afternoon, the Senate immigration subcommittee became the place where the House’s immigration bills went to die.

As the clock ticked toward 6 p.m., when the Senate was due to reconvene, the bills’ patrons were heard, and partisans on both sides of the issues lined up to give rapid-fire testimony. All but two of the bills sank under the weight of the subcommittee’s Democratic majority.

“That’s why they stacked it that way, in a small subcommittee to kill those bills,” Delegate Jackson Miller, R-Manassas, said in a Thursday phone interview.

The two survivors of the subcommittee:

• HB 1651, sponsored by Delegate John Cosgrove, R-Chesapeake, which would give the Virginia Department of Motor Vehicles the power to cancel any license issued to an individual if notified by a federal agency that the individual is not legally present in the United States. On a unanimous voice vote, the subcommittee advanced the measure to the full Senate Courts of Justice Committee.
• HB 1859, known as the Virginia Public Procurement Act, sponsored by Delegate Rich Anderson, R-Woodbridge, also received the subcommittee’s unanimous endorsement by adopting the language of SB 1049, introduced by Sen. George Barker, D-Alexandria. “The Barker bill,” as it was referred to, requires any employer with an average of more than 50 employees entering into a contract greater than $50,000 with any state agency to participate in E-Verify, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s voluntary work-eligibility verification program. SB 1049 is scheduled to be heard by the House Courts of Justice Committee on Monday, Feb. 21.

But the Senate subcommittee killed the other immigration-related bills that had been approved by the House. They included:

• HB 1421, sponsored by Delegate David Albo, R-Springfield, which would require all localities to conform to federal immigration law. Albo, a Republican from Springfield, acknowledged that his bill was aimed at Arlington’s so-called “sanctuary city” status. No one on the subcommittee made a motion to approve the measure, and so it failed.
• HB 1430, also sponsored by Albo, which would supplement existing law by requiring that all persons arrested have their legal presence status checked, regardless of whether they receive cash bond, personal recognizance bond or are jailed. The subcommittee made no motion on this bill.
• HB 1465, introduced by Delegate Christopher Peace, R-Mechanicsville, would require all Virginia public colleges and universities to have written policies against enrolling illegal immigrants. Witnesses against the bill included the State Council for Higher Education in Virginia, the Virginia Interfaith Center and the Laborers International Union. The subcommittee made no motion on this bill.
• HB 1775 had been radically amended from its original format by its sponsor, Delegate Todd Gilbert, R-Woodstock. As the subcommittee considered it, the proposal directed schools to collect and publicly report data on the number of students enrolled without a birth certificate. “I’m trying to get a handle on the ‘anchor babies’ and on the costs of educating these kids,” Gilbert said. The subcommittee made no motion on this bill.
• HB 1934, introduced by Miller, to authorize a “287g” agreement with the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency so that Virginia State Police could enforce federal immigration laws. (“287g” refers to the section of U.S. code that authorizes such agreements.) The American Council for Immigration Reform supported the bill; the Virginia Poverty Law Center, Virginia Coalition of Latino Organizations and the Virginia Sexual and Domestic Violence Action Alliance opposed it. Sen. Frederick Quayle, R-Suffolk, moved that the bill be reported, but there was no second.

When the meeting drew to a close, Latino members of the standing-room-only crowd applauded the outcome.

Others – such as Delegate Scott Lingamfelter, R-Woodbridge – were not so enthusiastic. The subcommittee had voted to “pass by indefinitely” HB 2332, Lingamfelter’s proposal to have police statewide check the immigration status of arrestees, as Prince William County does. Lingamfelter thanked the subcommittee for its consideration and said, “We’re going to keep doing this, and hopefully this will be universal practice in the state eventually.”