Illegal Immigration Bill Draft Summary

Bob Beers, Assembly District 21, Nevada

 

 

SECTION 1: TITLE.

• Creates the Nevada Taxpayer and Citizen Protection Act of 2009.

SECTION 2: FINDINGS.

• Legislative statement of intent that failure to enforce immigration law harms the safety and welfare of citizens and legal residents of Nevada.
• Declaration that the State has a compelling interest in insuring that government agencies and employers fully cooperate in the compliance with and enforcement of federal immigration law.

SECTION 3: FELONY TRANSPORTATION & HARBORING OF AN ILLEGAL ALIEN.

• Replicates in state law the federal statute making it a crime to move, transport, or attempt to transport persons known to be illegal aliens within Nevada.
• Replicates in state law the federal statute making it a crime to conceal, harbor, or shelter from detection in any place within the State persons known to be illegal aliens.
• Provides an exception for the transportation or harboring of illegal aliens if it’s associated with the provision of any benefit guaranteed to illegal aliens by federal law, or regulated public health services provided by a private charity with private funds.

SECTION 4: LAWFUL PRESENCE TEST FOR DRIVERS LICENSE & ID CARD

 APPLICANTS.

• Restricts eligibility for state driver’s licenses and identity cards to citizens, nationals, and legal immigrants. 
• Allows legally present nonimmigrants to be issued temporary licenses and ID cards valid only for the period for which the nonimmigrant has been admitted to the U.S.
• Provides an exception for schools IDs, as long as the school ID clearly states that the document is only valid for identification purposes at the institution where it was issued.

SECTION 5: VERIFICATION OF CITIZENSHIP OR IMMIGRATION STATUS OF

 PERSONS ARRESTED.

• Requires jail officials to attempt to verify the citizenship or immigration status of any person arrested or confined through the federal LawEnforcementSupportCenter operated by U.S. DHS.
• Requires foreign nationals who have not been lawfully admitted to the U.S. to be deemed a flight risk for bond determination purposes.

SECTION 6:  DEFINITIONS.

• Defines the terms “status verification system”, “public employer”, “subcontractor” and “unauthorized alien” for the purposes of Section 7.

SECTION 7: VERIFICATION OF WORK AUTHORIZATION BY PUBLIC EMPLOYERS,

 CONTRACTORS & SUBCONTRACTORS.

• Requires all public employers to register and participate in one of two federally implemented verification systems to verify federal employment authorization of new employees.
• Prohibits public employers from contracting for services with contractors who do not participate in a verification system to verify the status of all new employees after July 1, 2008.
• Prohibits contractors or subcontractors from entering into contracts with public employers unless they participate in a verification system to verify the status of all new employees after July 1, 2008.
• States that it’s a discriminatory practice for an employing entity to discharge a US citizen or legal resident alien while retaining an illegal alien, hired after July 1, 2008, in a comparable job as the discharged employee. In order for such a discharge to be considered a violation of this section, the employer had to know, or reasonably should have known, that the retained employee was illegal.
• Any employer using a status verification system to verify the employment eligibility of all new hires after July 1, 2008 is exempt from any liability arising from this section.
• No cause of action for violating this section can be brought against an employer, unless it arises from the provisions of this section.

 

SECTION 8: VERIFICATION OF LAWFUL IMMIGRATIONSTATUSFORSTATE &

 LOCAL PUBLIC BENEFITS.

• Requires all state and local agencies to verify lawful presence of applicants for state or local public benefits using the federal SAVE system.
• Provides exceptions for certain emergency and humanitarian public services designated by the U.S. Attorney General.

SECTION 9: WITHHOLDING OF INCOME TAX FOR INDEPENDENT CONTRACTORS

 WITHOUT VALID SOCIAL SECURITY NUMBERS.

• Requires individual independent contractors to show their contracting entity documentation to verify employment authorization, or the contracting entity must withhold federal income tax at the top marginal income tax rate.
• Any contracting entity who fails to do this is liable for the taxes that should have been withheld.
• This section applies only to business relationships between individual independent contractors and contracting entities, not employees and employers.

SECTION 10: COOPERATIVE IMMIGRATION LAW ENFORCEMENT BY STATE & LOCAL LAW ENFORCEMENT AGENCIES.

• Authorizes the State Attorney General to negotiate a memo of understanding between Nevada and the Department of Justice or Homeland Security regarding enforcement of federal immigration law in Nevada.
• Prohibits any local government in this state from passing an ordinance or law restricting the ability of a law enforcement officer or government employee to communicate or cooperate with federal officials regarding the immigration status of anyone in the state.
• Prohibits any government official or entity in the state from restricting another official, entity, or public employee in the state from sending or receiving information regarding the immigration status of any individual to or from the Department of Homeland Security.
• Establishes a private right of action for any individual in this state to file for a writ of mandamus against any local or state government agency not cooperating with the provisions of this section.

 

 

SECTION 11: GENERAL PROHIBITION ON ELIGIBILITY OF ILLEGAL ALIENS

   FOR POST-SECONDARY EDUCATION BENEFITS.

• Prohibits individuals not lawfully present in the country from receiving postsecondary education benefits or resident tuition.
• Provides an exception per the provisions of Section 13.
• States that the provisions of this section do not apply to any student enrolled in a college for the 2006-2007 school year or any prior year who received resident tuition per current law.

 

SECTION 12: ESTABLISHING A FRAUDULENT DOCUMENTS IDENTIFICATION UNIT

   AT THE DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC SAFETY.

• Contingent upon funding, DPS shall establish a Fraudulent Documents Identification Unit.

SECTION 13: SPECIFIC PROHIBITION ON ELIGIBILITY OF ILLEGAL ALIENS

   FOR POST-SECONDARY EDUCATION BENEFITS.

• Allows a person without legal immigration status to enroll in an institution of higher education and receive resident tuition, only if they have:

Ø      Graduated from a state high school;

Ø      Resided in the state with a parent or legal guardian while attending a state high school for at least two years before graduation;

Ø      Met the admissions requirements of the college;

Ø      Provided the college with a copy of a filed and pending application or petition for legal status; or

Ø      Provided the college with an affidavit that they will file such an application as soon as they are eligible, but in no case later than one year from the date that a process for legalization is available to them;

Ø      If such an affidavit is filed, they have to provide the college with a copy of a filed and pending application or petition for legal status no later than one year from the date that a process for legalization became available to them.

• No student shall have to meet additional conditions for resident tuition who qualified for resident tuition per the provisions of a previous version of this law during the 2006-2007 school year or any prior year.

SECTION 14: EFFECTIVE DATE.

• Effective date – October 1, 2009.

As of 2008, when Arkansas joined in, a total of 43 states have amended or re-written their constitutions to allow for a legal lottery. Two protectorates, Puerto Rico, and the US Virgin Islands each operate a lottery along with The District of Columbia.

If you go to Wikipedia and search for states with lotteries you will see a concise list and the style of lottery game they play. There is also a site maintained by the American Gaming Association that displays a list of U.S. States participating in Commercial Casinos, Indian Casinos, Lotteries, Pari-mutuel Wagering, Racetrack Casinos, and Charitable Gaming.

All of these lists are easily cross-checked. A search for Nevada will show that outside of commercial casinos, the state has almost no presence in any other style of gaming. A search of states with lotteries will show quite the opposite. States with lotteries also share the wealth with Indian Casinos, Pari-Mutual, Racetracks and Charitable Gaming. It takes a bit of digging, but the diligent searcher will discover that those states with Indian Casinos, Commercial Casinos and lotteries are also states where the companies behind commercial gaming in Nevada have a strong presence. You will also find that those states charge far higher gaming tax rates than Nevada. This begs the question, why, if those companies can easily afford to maintain casinos in a state with both higher taxes and a lottery, does gaming in Nevada claim that Nevada cannot afford a lottery, much less a raise in the gaming tax?

Besides having a run in the Nevada Legislature, I worked for nearly 20 years in gaming design as a graphic artist. I learned from the inside just how much intensity goes into gaining a gaming license in states outside of Nevada. Many of the major players on the Las Vegas strip have effectively gotten down onto their knees and begged to be allowed to build a property in places like Gulfport, knowing full well that they would pay a tax upwards of fives times higher than that in Nevada. When Governor Jim Gibbons suggested taking a half-cent from the room tax given to the resort association’s tourism board and using it to pay for road repair, the association nearly had a stroke.

The careful reader will notice a distinct disparity here. Gaming has run Nevada for so long that it cannot conceive of any other situation. If this state’s economy is to ever recover, it has to rely on other sources of income, but it also has to use pragmatism rather than favoritism in its tax policy. If a company can prosper in a state with a lottery while paying a higher tax rate, than it can certainly do so in Nevada. A rough run of the numbers shows that Nevada could increase its tax income by a half billion dollars simply by allowing a state lottery. Approximately half that amount goes to neighboring California and Arizona each year because they have lotteries and Nevada does not. The reason Nevada’s Legislature has not voted to allow a lottery? Key leaders in the State Senate and Assembly have been told by gaming that their campaigns would suffer if they allowed that to happen.

Right now Nevada’s Governor is suggesting that the state has to slash the education budget by nearly 50% in order to balance the budget. He has suggested this without even once looking at the end result of such an action. He has also refused to consider any common sense solutions that consider the raising of revenue. Allowing a future generation to suffer in order to save the present generation a few pennies is not being conservative, it is being foolish. Allowing the tax payer to choose whether or not to pay a tax is common sense and fits right in with the thinking of the founding fathers. Allowing Nevada to have a lottery is a good first step.

The U.S. House passed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, H.R. 1, on Wednesday. The vote was 244 to 188, with several Democrat members joining the GOP rebellion.

Most of the money would come through the government's two largest grant programs, Title I (for educating low-income children) and IDEA (aid for the learning disabled). The 2009 allocation also contains a large dose of money for building schools and fixing old ones. What the bill does not contain is any money for teachers, and there is a nasty little loophole that allows Washington to withhold the funds at a whim.

That loophole is a matching funds provision. States, such as Nevada, that are trying to solve their budget problems without real reform will be forced to come up with funding that matches what Washington is preparing to give. If they don’t, those monies are withheld. Governor Jim Gibbons’ budget, one that he put together without consulting a single affected entity, bases the majority of its core budget solution on reducing the state’s obligation to education by over 50%. This move is typical of the personalities that have taken over the power structure within the Republican Party. Ronald Reagan would never have condoned such a “solution”.

Today’s Republican Party, at least in my state of Nevada, has allowed itself to be co-opted by radical elements that claim to speak for all conservatives but don’t even belong to the party and by office holders who have gladly sold their ethics and honor for the promise of campaign funds. What is the saddest point of all is that the voters don’t seem to care about this. They consistently vote for whoever sends out the largest volume of ad material; especially if those ads promise the voter something for nothing. In the end all they get for that vote is nothing.

Where education is concerned, Nevada’s conservative pundits seem to have a huge blind spot. They write on a regular basis about failing to learn the lessons of history where tax policy is concerned, but at the same time they fail to see what we have done to our schools.

Few people remember now, but there was a time when the American Education System was the envy of the world. Back then teachers were allowed to teach without also having to be a secretary for the administration. They were allowed to exact real discipline without the threat of a lawsuit being held over their heads. Textbooks were thick and held real knowledge, undiluted by politically correct censorship.

Teachers’ wages were low, but so were the administrations’, so they all shared the same boat and they worked together to put out the best product they could, a student prepared to enter the working world.

Those who attack our public schools in the media offer little in the way of solutions, but this is typical of the type. For them, reaction is all they have, but like Governor Gibbons, they refuse to even discuss the issue with those they perceive as the enemy. So what do we do?

Private schools and vouchers are no solution. All those do is exempt the pundits and their supporters from the same burden of citizenship everyone else shares in. If we are to keep our country sovereign, we have to have a citizenry capable of meeting the challenges of this world head on, and they cannot do that if they cannot read, write, or think. In order to succeed in this work we will have to upset and offend a significant portion of our population.

Groups that focus on a narrow band of human sexuality, either to the right of the left, will have to be told that their opinion does not matter where education is concerned. Groups who feel that the US Government is fascist or worse will have to be told much the same. Groups who feel that the color of a persons’ skin is paramount will have to be removed from the discussion. Most especially we will have to prevent the legal community from having anything to do with education. The only part any group should have in education is what they have left for the historical record. Policy, procedure and regulation that deal with any form of political correctness should be stringently outlawed, complete with penalties for any person or entity attempting to reestablish what has proven to be disastrous.

Uniforms, similar to those used by airline stewards and stewardesses, consisting of slacks, business casual shirt and sensible shoes need to replace the costumes typical to today. This would remove the focus in the students’ minds on how they look to what they are doing. Vocabulary should be stringently regulated, even outside of the classroom. I pods, cell phones, and other electronic distractions should be forbidden to be on campus. Those students who simply cannot abide the fact that others in the class may be learning something, will be corralled together with the rest of the Sweathogs and only allowed to learn the core subjects; reading, writing and arithmetic. Outside of the Sweathogs’ den, every school, from middle school on up, will have to teach education tracks relevant to a variety of careers with hands-on labs similar to the shop classes of days gone by.

If we can do this, we will again be the envy of the world. That may up set some, but honestly, would anybody care about that?

It is not surprising after the solid butt-whipping the Republican Party received at the hands of the Democrats in last week’s election that a number of stories about party disarray have surfaced. Some of them are bitter-edged recriminations that blame the voters for their lack of trust. Some, like what I have written, hold a tinge of gloat because the neocons who stole the party got what they so richly deserved. As a Republican Assemblyman who was recently defeated by the rigorous efforts of the Republican leadership, I have a personal interest in those stories. My contention is that while there may be some party disarray, this really is the end result of a concerted effort on the part of the leadership to purge the Republican Party of any and all moderation.

I lost my primary in August to a candidate (John Ozark) who did not even live in my district until shortly before primary voting ended. The “ideologues” in my own party wanted me out of this seat badly enough to ask as many as eight people to run against me. Last winter, I received a call from Heidi Gansert, the Nevada Assembly Minority Leader, asking me to step down in favor of Bob Seale, the man who held my seat before me, and I refused. Not one of the eight, including Seale, agreed to run, until they found Ozark, a candidate who has been trying to get into the Assembly through “district hopping” for the past 4 years at least. When Ozark agreed to run, the campaign of lies and deception started. The overblown yellow journalism that George Harris (publisher of Liberty Watch), Chuck Muth (a political blogger and not a Republican) and Ed Vogel( a Las Vegas Review-Journal stringer) cooked up about my forgetting to turn off the contribution page on my website during the special session this summer is a prime example. The story did not once mention all of the other Republican Assemblymen and Senators who, in the intense confusion of a special session being on, then off and then on again, also forgot to turn off their own websites. That incident, along with many other lies and half-truths, was used as a direct attack during and after the primary as a purging effort and to ensure that only the “ideologues’” mouthpiece was elected. The level of hypocrisy shown by these people is staggering. They complain about “ethical challenges,” but a check on the financial disclosures of John Ozark will show an interesting disparity in what he declared and what was spent. Just how much does it take to send out over a dozen high-end mailers in a primary? These “ideologues” ignored their own polls that showed that I had the highest fiscally conservative voting record in the Assembly, choosing instead to back a totally untried candidate, agreeable to anything they said and willing to be led about by the nose, as long as he got to play Assemblyman. But as history now shows, this strategy backfired terribly for them, causing the loss of a Republican seat and a Democrat supermajority in the Assembly.

There are similarities between a number of races race and mine. Many moderate representatives are honest and interested in representing all of their constituents, not just the “pure” Republicans. The problem is, the leadership may not be as ethical or as interested in representation. The GOP Nevada State Party Chairwoman, Sue Lowden said this about me, “He is too honest, we can’t trust him.” And if you go back and check the campaign literature, the Democrat attacks regarding these representatives were along the same lines. They never questioned the candidate’s honesty, but merely claimed he or she couldn’t be trusted. Isn’t it interesting that the GOP leadership never came to any of these folk’s defense? I believe it is because they are statesman, not politicians and where the GOP stands right now, statesmen need not apply.

Because of all of this “cannibalism,” I chose to support Ellen Spiegel, the Democrat Assemblywoman-elect in District 21. This is not because she isn’t a Republican, but because she was the only ethical candidate. Ellen will represent all the citizens in District 21, and not just those who reflect “party purity.” Now Harris, Muth and the assorted members of their cabal blame me for the Nevada Assembly’s Democrat super majority. Perhaps they should look into a mirror to fix blame.

Nevada Assembly Speaker Barbara Buckley should send them a large, expensive fruit basket as a thank you for their efforts in the Democrat majority’s victory.

Taxes cause deficits. Believe it or not, that is a historical reality. Every time taxes are raised, the state, or country that raised those taxes has increased its margin of loss.

Don't believe me? Let's take a look at my own state, Nevada. During the 2005 legislative session our “Democrat” Governor, Kenny "tax 'em till they weep" Quinn put forth a bill to raise taxes by almost a billion dollars. That may seem small potatoes to some of you, but for a state with only two cities of decent size, this was a backbreaker. Nearly every business, from mom and pop up to large corporations, was affected; except for the sacrosanct gaming industry. He even went as far as violating the state constitution by taxing business and private properties at different levels. The constitution has an equality clause stating that you can’t do that. However, Kenny never allowed the law to get in the way of adding some cash to his coffers. He called himself a Republican, but a lot of people do in this state…what they really are is crooks. A real conservative follows the constitution, even if doing so costs them.

Two years later he had a, supposed 300 million surplus and the legislature nearly went to war over deciding where those dollars went. Eventually some of it went back to the taxpayers, but they got back considerably less than what they had put in. It is not an attractive investment program. The problem came when all those businesses being charged higher taxes began to pass them along to their customers, adding an addition cushion for the administration costs. This means prices went up. The customers responded as they always do, they bought less and the sales tax revenues went down. Those corporations with the financial power to do so began hiding more of their assets and instead of adding to the state treasury, the level of contribution dropped. In a very short time the surplus had become a shortfall. If the tax raise had not occurred, the economy would have remained somewhat stable and no “surplus” would have been distributed. Shoppers would have continued to shop and the sales and corporate tax revenues would have remained stable. Sure, some of Kenny’s pet projects would have gone unrealized, but not one of them was even close to being a necessity.

Let’s look at the east coast. New Jersey was at one time a state that enjoyed the problem of having to deal with a treasury surplus year after year. Governor Jon Corzine took over a state that had taxed and spent itself into a combined deficit exceeding 30 billion dollars. Now, New Jersey is a state with negative growth and Governor Corzine refuses to consider any solution that does not include a “revenue enhancement”. It was those enhancements and all that socialistic spending that put his state into the morass it is currently in. Raising taxes, especially on those businesses that create jobs always hurts you in the long run. You don’t grow when you whack of the head of the golden goose, you wait for those eggs to be laid.

If we want to get out of this current headlong slide into depression, we have to make a few hard choices. One of those is that we have to immediately reduce taxes on the producers and eliminate some. The inheritance tax is a good place to start. Property taxes are another one. If we put more money into the hands of the people who earn it, history shows that they always reinvest at numbers large enough to grow the economy. If we punish achievement, we punish ourselves.