Latest news with #SenateConcurrentResolution1602
Yahoo
20-03-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Kansas House members share family history while opposing resolution on immigration
Rep. Brooklynne Mosley talks with House Democrats during a March 19, 2025, session. She spoke in opposition to a resolution urging support of federal immigration enforcement efforts. (Sherman Smith/Kansas Reflector) TOPEKA — House members shared personal family history Thursday as they discredited anti-immigrant rhetoric that echoed through committee hearings earlier in the legislative session. But the House still approved Senate Concurrent Resolution 1602, a nonbinding statement urges the governor to help secure the U.S. border with Mexico and work with federal authorities to enforce immigration laws. Proponents of the bill, including Attorney General Kris Kobach, law enforcement officers and Republican legislators, routinely used dehumanizing language to describe immigrants who don't have legal residency in the United States. Some of the proponents spread false narratives about fentanyl trafficking and emphasized that simply being in the country without legal status makes immigrants criminals, though that is a civil offense rather than a crime. The Senate adopted the resolution by a 31-9 party line vote on Jan. 29. Rep. Angela Martinez, a Wichita Democrat who said her grandmother raised seven kids and 'died an undocumented immigrant,' took issue with a proponent of the resolution who said during a committee hearing that 'we are a nation of laws.' 'And I say to that, is it a crime to want a better life? Is it a crime to not want to be surrounded by violence, drugs and unrest, to not be able to live in peace? And I ask you to imagine what that would be like to live like that,' Martinez said during Thursday's debate. Rep. Susan Ruiz, a Shawnee Democrat, identified herself as the proud daughter of an immigrant father from Mexico. She said he worked on the Southern Pacific Railroad for 50 years in Texas, became a U.S. citizen and learned English. But he never looked down on anyone else who came to country, she said. Ruiz asserted the country has a broken immigration system and that Congress declined an opportunity last year to start to fix it. 'Instead, they used immigrants as a political edge, depicting immigrants as spoiling the blood of U.S., as rapists, as drug dealers, taking away our U.S. jobs and using our resources. And none of this is true,' Ruiz said. 'The drug dealing? Perhaps. But look at research and look at more than one source to look at where the fentanyl is coming from. It is not coming from the moms who are bringing their children because they're escaping turmoil from their own country.' Rep. Bill Bloom, a Republican farmer from Clay Center, said one of his best friends had walked across the Rio Grande with his family as a child. Bloom said the friend herded the family's sheep, and for 45 years, 'he worked like a dog.' The friend's five children were all lawyers or engineers, Bloom said. 'I know we don't like the way that people came here, but they're here,' Bloom said. 'If they're decent and they work hard, we deserve to give them a chance.' Rep. Brooklynne Mosley, a Lawrence Democrat, said immigrants pay more taxes than billionaires and commit crimes a rate lower than American-born citizens. Most immigrants who don't have legal status, she said, have overstayed their visas. 'People are not getting picked up on the corners committing crimes,' Mosley said. 'They're getting picked up from their jobs, the jobs to help this country run.' She said the resolution would compel the state 'to be part of what is essentially creating a Brownshirt-esque unit,' a reference to the paramilitary unit that protected Nazis. Rep. Ford Carr, a Wichita Democrat, said federal immigration enforcement efforts are supposed to target those who have committed 'some sort of heinous crime,' but that's not always the practice. He said the resolution before the House 'doesn't make sense' and is 'extremely unfair.' Carr also referenced the Legislature's longstanding failure to fully pay for special education needs in public schools. 'We don't have enough money to fund special ed, but we're going to potentially allocate funds for protection at the border, which, last I checked, we don't border another country here in Kansas,' Carr said. Rep. Melissa Oropeza, a Kansas City Democrat, said she wanted to call attention to support for the resolution by the Kansas Catholic Conference, the Kansas City, Kansas, archdiocese and the bishops of Kansas. She questioned the merits of religious groups getting involved in policy and wondered if they had 'forgotten their own teachings.' 'I will not allow the Catholic Church to hide in the shadows as they have done in the past. History will not repeat itself on my watch,' Oropeza said. 'The Pope has spoken out against this type of policy. I will not allow the priests to stand alone at the pulpit in the state of Kansas, calming the flocks of Kansas Latinos and immigrants and all nationalities, as middle management, AKA the bishops and the archdiocese, endorses this type of resolution against immigrants and Latinos, then in the same breath ask for donations from the very same immigrants and Latino communities across the state.'
Yahoo
13-02-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Lone Catholic nun stands before Kansas House to oppose immigration enforcement resolution
Sister Therese Bangert of the Sisters of Charity of Leavenworth offered the only in-person testimony during a Kansas House committee hearing on a resolution directed Gov. Laura Kelly to support President Donald Trump's immigration enforcement agenda. No one spoke in favor of the resolution. (Sherman Smith/Kansas Reflector) TOPEKA — Sister Therese Bangert stood alone before the House Federal and State Affairs Committee to denounce a resolution urging Gov. Laura Kelly to do everything in her power to support the immigration enforcement agenda of President Donald Trump. Bangert, who has been with the Sisters of Charity of Leavenworth for more than 60 years, said the nation's immigration system had been broken for decades. By default, she said, the federal government had allowed migrant laborers to fill jobs in the United States without extending to those individuals an accessible path to legal residency or citizenship. She said people targeted by the Kansas Senate-approved resolution were Kansans in every way except for possession of U.S. immigration documents. 'I suspect these are the immigrant women who are milking cows in the western Kansas dairy industry, the men and women on the killing floors of Kansas slaughterhouses and those roofing the homes in my neighborhood,' said Bangert, who was worried they were all vulnerable to deportation. 'I find troubling the heated rhetoric when speaking about our sisters and brothers who are immigrants.' No one showed up at the House hearing to argue in favor of Senate Concurrent Resolution 1602. Likewise, there was no one present to articulate a neutral position. Wichita Republican Rep. Tom Kessler, chairman of the House committee, said written testimony lauding the resolution had been submitted, but it wasn't publicly available. When the Senate conducted its hearing in January on the resolution, Bangert wasn't given the opportunity to speak to lawmakers. Sen. Mike Thompson, chairman of the Senate Federal and State Affairs Committee and sponsor of the resolution, said Bangert needed to notify the committee 24 hours in advance to be granted permission to testify. Proponents of the measure, including Attorney General Kris Kobach, were permitted to address Thompson's committee. The Senate went on to approve the resolution on a party-line vote of 31-9. It was expected to pass the House by a wide margin. During the House committee hearing, Rep. Susan Ruiz, D-Shawnee, noted the absence of a throng of in-person witnesses to argue on behalf of the Senate resolution. 'There is no one here as a proponent, which I find really odd,' Ruiz said. The void was partially filled by Republicans on the House committee who offered commentary demonstrating their sense that Kansas governors ought to authorize use of state resources to help patrol the national border, including deploying Kansas National Guard troops, and to assist with Trump's strategy of detaining and deporting thousands or millions of people. There was no evidence of support for a concurrent crackdown on Kansas businesses hiring people without proper documentation. Rep. Brian Bergkamp, R-Wichita, said the state and nation needed a higher standard of border security to address immigration among people without permission to remain temporarily or permanently in the United States. The security concept mirrored justification for a metal-detector at the main entrance to the Capitol instead of relying on an antiquated open-door policy for visitors, he said. 'I definitely stand for immigration,' Bergkamp said, 'but in a more orderly fashion.' GOP Rep. Kyle McNorton of Topeka said it was wrong for anyone to view people in the country without permission as law-abiding individuals. 'They broke the number one law coming across our border without permission and are still here,' McNorton said. In response, Wichita Democratic Rep. Angela Martinez said the majority of people in the United States without authorization had overstayed a Visa rather than enter by sneaking across the border in defiance of immigration authorities. 'I support the deportation of criminals,' said Martinez, who was temporarily placed on the committee to coincide with debate on the resolution. 'I ask this committee to sit and be honest with yourself. If you were subject to violence and tyranny and you couldn't support your children and there was an opportunity for a better life … would you go?' Rep. John Alcala, a Topeka Democrat among temporary appointments to the committee, said proponents of the resolution hadn't taken into account economic harm that would fall on Kansas if full deportation occurred. He said the National Immigration Law Center estimated Kansas' workforce was comprised of thousands of people without documents to stay in the United States. He said an NILC study indicated there were 25,000 in manufacturing, 17,000 in food service and 16,000 in construction. In 2020, he said, NILC estimated those workers paid more than $600 million in state and federal taxes. 'I don't think people realize what the impact will be on businesses that are struggling with labor shortages,' Alcala said. 'How are we going to offset that economic loss? Can Kansas afford that loss of revenue? I don't think so.' Lawrence Rep. Brooklynne Mosley, a Democrat, said issues of human dignity and moral injury might not have been considered by champions of the resolution. 'What does that do to the cloth of a community when they start to see families being ripped apart?' she said.
