The Cost Of Rounding Them Up

Good thing we elected fiscal conservatives here in the Bluegrass State, huh?

The state Senate Republicans' immigration bill would cost Kentucky a net $40 million a year in court, prison and foster-care costs, according to a fiscal-impact statement issued Thursday by legislative staff.

Senate Bill 6 would make it a state crime for an illegal immigrant to set foot in Kentucky, and it would authorize police to approach people and ask about their immigration status. The Senate voted 24-14 last week to pass the bill without knowing its cost.

I've talked about Senate Bill 6 before, it's flatly unconstitutional and would force Kentucky law enforcement officials to determine the immigration status of anyone they encounter while on duty.   It not only contains all the blatantly illegal parts of Arizona's bill (the parts that were promptly struck down) but several new, even worse provisions...all for dealing with an estimated one percent of the population.

"It does look like serious money," Sen. John Schickel, the bill's sponsor, said Thursday.

"But these are estimates, and quite frankly, I don't agree with these estimates," said Schickel, R-Union. "For one thing, this assumes that law enforcement is going to enforce it to the maximum everywhere, and the bill leaves it open to each jurisdiction's individual discretion."

Also, Schickel said, as Kentucky gets a reputation for being less friendly to illegal immigrants, fewer of them will come here, and the full costs of the bill won't need to be repeated every year.

The bill is now in the hands of the House, where Democratic majority leaders have expressed skepticism about its future. House Speaker Greg Stumbo, D-Prestonsburg, declined to comment Thursday.

Got news for you guys, it's not just fewer undocumented people who will come here, but Latino-American citizens, businesses, corporations, events, and conventions as well.  Again, $40 million a year to deal with 40,000 people seems kind of a bad deal for taxpayers (on top of the whole unconstitutional thing).

And that's far from the only economic impact:

If all illegal immigrants were removed, the state would lose $1.7 billion in economic activity, $756.8 million in gross state product and 12,059 jobs, according to the non-profit Immigration Policy Center. In a statement accompanying its report, the center opposed SB6 and an earlier, similar Arizona measure now tied up in the federal appellate courts.

"As Kentucky faces a $780 million budget shortfall in fiscal year 2011, state legislators are currently pursuing a costly and short-sighted 'papers please' law," the center said in its statement. "Senate Bill 6 is a copycat of Arizona's SB1070. ... Kentucky should consider the following evidence before continuing to pursue this kind of immigration legislation." 

While we're at it, the state should stop giving away tens of millions in tax breaks to creationist theme parks, too.   We can't afford either right now...certainly not tens of millions for institutionalized bigotry.