Idaho congresswoman targets immigration issues

Idaho lawmakers have agreed to debate a resolution that accuses the federal government of shirking its constitutional duties by allowing illegal immigrants into the country.

The resolution by Sen. Shirley McKague, R-Meridian, also calls for the president and Congress to end birthright citizenship for children of illegal immigrants, secure the nation’s borders, end economic incentives to illegal immigration and reject any legislation that would extend amnesty to illegal foreign workers.

The Senate State Affairs Committee voted to print the bill Monday, the first step before the resolution receives a committee hearing.

Sen. Brad Little, R-Emmett, who sits on the State Affairs Committee, said that because he and other members of the committee had questions about the resolution – particularly the language concerning birthright citizenship – it will return to committee for debate after it has been printed.

“I understand people’s concerns about it,” he said.

The members of the State Affairs Committee aren’t the only ones with concerns about the resolution.

Sam Byrd, director of the Center for Community and Justice, said the resolution is a case of state lawmakers, frustrated “because of the inaction of Congress,” trying to “recommend changes to federal law.”

And while the Center for Community and Justice wants border security too, Byrd said, “we just disagree” on how to do that.

Providing illegal immigrants with identification cards with their correct names and addresses “would do more to secure our borders than anything we could do,” he said.

“If the good senator really cared about border security, she would really go beyond” the idea of building a wall and propose a solution that would address the source of the immigration problem, like investing the millions of dollars it would cost to build a wall along the border into economic development in Mexico, Byrd said.

Karen McWilliams, a former board member of the Idaho Community Action Network and active ICAN member, said the resolution would serve no purpose other than to “create tensions and misunderstanding among Idahoans.”

“This resolution sends a bad image for Idaho,” she said. “Instead of welcoming hard-working people who have fled their country as economic refugees, the Legislature has resorted to name calling and classifying people as invaders.”

The Community Council of Idaho declined to comment on the resolution.

CHRISTIN RUNKLE
Idaho Press-Tribune

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