Virginia GOP plans bills to curb illegals

Virginia Republicans yesterday said they will push five proposals next year in the General Assembly aimed at illegal aliens.

The measures would require sheriffs to confirm an arrested person’s legal status in the United States through the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement database and every jail to have a person certified to detain illegals during the deportation process. Republicans also want to make a federal conviction for hiring illegals grounds for suspension of a business license, bar people from attending state universities unless they have a valid student visa and make them ineligible for bail.

“Honest, law-abiding Virginia taxpayers have had enough,” said Senate Majority Leader Walter A. Stosch, Henrico Republican. “The time has arrived when we can no longer count on the federal government. In Virginia, we will have to step up and take actions that will preserve the integrity of the delivery of state services, ensuring that they go only to legal residents.”

House Speaker William J. Howell, Stafford County Republican, agreed. “Permitting illegal aliens to circumvent the rule of law not only undermines the integrity and well-being of our society,” it drains Virginia taxpayers and “is an injustice to those immigrants who followed the lawful path in coming to Virginia and the United States,” he said.

Scarred from years of party infighting over taxes, Republican Party of Virginia Chairman John H. Hager told The Washington Times that yesterday’s press conference where the proposals were announced highlighted the common ground conservatives and centrists found in fighting illegal entry into the U.S.

“I think the way we are approaching it appeals to a broad base of the Republican party,” said Mr. Hager, a former lieutenant governor. “Everybody is in favor of protecting our citizens and everyone is in favor of reducing crime.”

The common ground over illegal entry follows a series of ideological battles between the anti-tax House and more centrist Senate over how to pay for transportation improvements, and a bitter June primary that saw anti-tax conservatives defeat two incumbent Republican state senators who in 2004 sided with Democrats to enact a $1.38 billion tax increase.

“We are working quite hard this very minute to bring all the significant views together,” Mr. Hager said. “The leadership in the House and Senate must define the message, and everyone is working to come up with hard-hitting points.”

Meanwhile, Attorney General Robert F. McDonnell, a Republican who plans to run for governor in 2009, continues to pressure Gov. Timothy M. Kaine, a Democrat, to create a statewide partnership with federal immigration officials that would allow state agencies to identify illegal aliens and begin deportation procedures.

Mr. Kaine has said that job belongs to the federal government and the cost would be too much of a financial burden on the state, which is projected to have a $641 million budget shortfall by next summer.

Coming off three losses in statewide races for top office, Republicans hope cracking down on illegal entry will help woo voters in the Democratic-leaning suburbs of Northern Virginia and motivate their party base.

“I think it will play very [well] because they are the kinds of nuts-and-bolts common-sense ideas that people can embrace,” Mr. Hager said.

But Democrats remain confident Northern Virginia voters will still deliver three of the four seats they need to take over the state Senate. Whoever wins the Senate will team up with the gubernatorial and House of Delegates winners in 2009 to draw new congressional districts in 2010.

James Rich, Republican chairman of the 10th Congressional District committee, said his party needs to strike a delicate balance between welcoming legal immigrants who share the party’s core values and illegal aliens, who do not.

“We don’t want to give the impression that we are not a welcoming party for legal immigrants,” Mr. Rich said. “We have to be careful that we don’t send the wrong message. We shouldn’t be mean-spirited.”