Virginia House Approves Tougher Alien Bills

The Virginia House of Delegates passed an bill to address some of the issues involving illegal immigration. Naturally the immigration lobby is predicting the end of the world as we know it and crying anti immigrant bias.

The House yesterday approved on a 77-22 vote a measure that would give 50 state troopers the authority to detain illegal aliens.

Also, delegates today are expected to pass a bill that denies illegal aliens college admission and a measure that requires students who cannot prove their legal presence to pay out-of-state tuition rates, even if they graduated from a Virginia high school.

The approval of the trooper bill comes a day after Gov. Timothy M. Kaine, a Democrat, told The Washington Times that he thinks immigration ranks low on the list of priorities among Virginians.

"It does matter to a number of people, but compared to jobs, education, health care, transportation, it's pretty far down," he said.

The Senate is still a bit squeamish over this bill so it remains to be seen if this will become law, or if it does what form it will take. To me it's not hard to understand the logic in not providing instate tuition to non residents. The 'We pay taxes" argument could easily be used by anyone by virtue of the state sales tax so it holds no water with me.

Then the use of State Troopers for enforcement has some moaning over the Federal responsibility and allocation of limited resources aspect. Frankly the Fed is dropping the ball on this but the states can't sit idly by and let the situation fester any longer. Going ahead and doing it then billing the Fed or withholding tax revenues in lieu of payment might encourage them to take the issue seriously.

Gov. Kaine, typical of most politicians of all stripes just doesn't think illegal immigration is such a big deal. Truth is the only reason it is being addressed is because the citizens are making such a big deal about it. Elected officials would love to pretend that illegal immigration is not serious or even that it is good for the country. Many believe it's a untapped voting block they can exploit for future elections.