Hearing on Illegal Immigration to start Monday
Filed Under Caucus, Ritchie, Top News
South Carolina’s Republican Senators are starting to lead the fight on Illegal Immigration! Please see this article published in the GREENVILLE NEWS on Sunday, October 7th.
COLUMBIA-A year after a Senate study committee first asked the public to give it ideas on the subject of illegal immigration, the panel will do so again tonight in Greer.
Much has happened on the issue since the committee held its first hearings in Columbia in the fall of 2006. Congress debated but did not pass legislation on the issue. Hispanic groups held nationwide marches. South Carolina’s Senate passed a comprehensive reform bill, which remains parked in the House Judiciary Committee.
The failure of both Congress and the S.C. General Assembly to pass immigration reform has increased the support for the state’s legislators to do something next year, said Sen. Jim Ritchie of Spartanburg, who chairs the study committee.
“My feedback from the House members I talk to is that they are ready to give this issue first consideration and to pass this bill,” he said. “The state Chamber of Commerce and others have come to me and said, ‘We want to work with you. The federal government didn’t act and we’re ready to move forward with you.’”
The hearings, Ritchie said, are designed to get input from the public, explore what other states have done on the issue this year and to consider a proposal by Senate President Pro Tempore Glenn McConnell of Charleston to seek a national constitutional convention on illegal immigration.
The constitutional convention idea would have to be approved by the Legislature through a joint resolution, he said.
“I think it’s important that we have a national conversation about this,” he said. “And I think this is an innovative way to address a matter that Congress has clearly failed to adequately handle.”
The town of Clemson has hosted two recent meetings on the issue of illegal immigration, an effort to spur cities and counties to look at what they can do to attack the problem, said Clemson City Councilwoman Margaret Thompson.
The Illegal Immigration Reform Act, the legislation spawned by Ritchie’s committee, would require state and local agencies to verify the legal status of anyone seeking public benefits; require state and local governments to only contract with businesses that employ verified workers; prohibit businesses from claiming tax deductions for an employees’ pay if the employee is not a federally authorized worker and allow a fired worker to sue if the employer knowingly replaced the worker with an illegal immigrant.
The hearings will allow the public to tell the panel, which also includes Sen. Lewis Vaughn of Greer, what they think about the legislation in addition to what they think of the issue.
The Greer hearing will take place at 6 p.m. at the Greer Commission of Public Works at 301 McCall St. Additional hearings are scheduled for Oct. 23 in Charleston and Nov. 15 in Pendleton.
Ritchie said the hearings are a chance to reach people who couldn’t travel to Columbia last year but also a reflection of the interest of the public in the issue.
He said the panel might schedule more hearings, depending on the response to the next three.
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