A growing number of red states have joined President Donald Trump in seeking ways to reduce illegal immigration with a plethora of new measures.
The president made immigration one of his top priorities during his campaign, and polls have consistently shown voters are fully in tune with Trump and support him on that issue.
With the vast popularity of the issue — especially among Republican voters — officials in red states are responding with a series of strong measures, the Washington Post reported.
Measures from small to large are being debated in state houses across the country. In Iowa and South Dakota, for instance, lawmakers have introduced bills to ensure that driver’s licenses and state ID cards have a clear marking whether or not the holder is a legal citizen. And Montana is looking to make immigration status checks a routine part of traffic stops and would require police officers to ascertain citizenship.
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Several states are mulling rules that would require employers to make sure that those they hire are either legal residents, or have work permits that allow them to work in their states.
The new focus on immigration is not exactly sudden, either. Both Texas and Florida have been ramping up their rules on migrants with a suite of rules, regulations, and laws. For example, both states now track costs caused by illegals in their healthcare systems by requiring hospitals to document how much money they spend on indigent illegals who can’t pay their hospital bills. Florida enacted its cost tracking early last year. Texas followed suit later that same year.
Some states, such as Tennessee and Indiana, are openly announcing that they will fully cooperate with Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Department of Homeland Security in the effort to round up and deport criminal aliens.
The state of Tennessee has even introduced a measure with a bill title that might be a bit on the nose. Tennessee lawmakers introduced a TRUMP Act (or the Tennessee Reduction of Unlawful Migrant Placement Act) to charge anyone the costs of schooling if they enroll a child who is not a legal resident.
Speaking of education, a number of states are looking for ways to deny deter or prevent children from signing up for free schooling on the taxpayer’s dime. And Oklahoma is pushing a new law that would require school districts to monitor and report every student who is not a legal resident so that the state can specifically track how much money and how many school resources are being lavished on migrants.
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Meanwhile, Mississippi and Missouri have introduced bills to pay bounty hunters to track down and detain illegal aliens in their states.
“What the states are trying to do is claw back some authority on immigration as long as it’s not contradictory to federal immigration law,” Mark Krikorian, executive director of the right-wing Center for Immigration Studies told the Washington Times. “They have a role,” he said, adding, “They’re co-sovereigns.”
But non-governmental organizations that advocate for pro-illegal migrant polices say that these states are engaging in scare tactics” in hopes of driving migrants out of their states and most are planing or have already filed lawsuits meant to stymie the agenda.
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