State Rep. Tom Creighton
Police would be required to question individuals about their immigration status and demand documentation if they suspect a person is in the country illegally under legislation introduced Tuesday in the state House.
The proposal, whose more than two dozen supporters include Republican state Rep. Tom Creighton of Lancaster County, mirrors Arizona's controversial new law targeting illegal immigrants for deportation.
"We have a very serious economic situation right now where jobs are so important that we can't have people who are taking those jobs from our workforce," said Creighton.
"We need to stop the flow of these people coming in and then deal with the people who are here," he said, adding that there are proper channels by which immigrants can become citizens.
The proposal has 29 co-sponsors. Creighton, of Rapho Township, is the only lawmaker from Lancaster County to sign on to the bill.
Gov. Ed Rendell, who had not seen the legislation, said he would veto it if it resembled the Arizona law, spokesman Gary Tuma said.
At a news conference on a separate issue, the governor acknowledged that some polls show a majority of people support the Arizona proposal. But he said a majority also supported putting Japanese Americans in detention camps during World War II.
The new bill's prime sponsor is Butler County Rep. Daryl Metcalfe, a Republican, who said an estimated 140,000 illegal immigrants in Pennsylvania cost taxpayers more than $728 million a year and sometimes engage in criminal activity.
"There is one crime after another that's committed in our nation against American citizens by people who shouldn't be here in the first place," Metcalfe said at a Harrisburg news conference.
He said his bill would require police officers to try to verify immigration status with the federal government if they suspect an individual of being here illegally. However, that procedure could happen only in the course of a stop for another suspected violation and police are not permitted to simply pull someone over based on their race.
"You cannot stop somebody just because they're Hispanic, black or white or Indian," he said. "There is no profiling based on race. It is totally profiling based on somebody breaking the law."
Still, the bill does not provide any criteria by which police officers are supposed to determine who might be here illegally.
"That's a real subjective decision by that officer," Creighton said. "He has to make an evaluation every time he pulls anybody over."
Several House Democrats quickly criticized the proposal.
"Such a law leads inevitably to racial profiling and harassment — something neither the state, nor our law enforcement, should take part in," Reps. Dan Frankel of Allegheny County and Angel Cruz of Philadelphia said in a joint statement.
The two legislators added that cash-strapped state and local governments "should not take on the federal responsibility of enforcing immigration law."
The American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania also condemned the proposal, calling it "dead on arrival" in the Legislature.
"The commonwealth's law-enforcement officers have a challenging job in keeping our communities safe," said Andy Hoover, the state ACLU's legislative director, in announcing the chapter's opposition to the bill. "Asking them to enforce federal immigration law ties their hands behind their backs and makes their job more difficult."
Metcalfe maintained, however, that removing illegal immigrants from the streets by his "policy of attrition through enforcement" ultimately would save taxpayers money and cut the workload on police.
His bill would make it a misdemeanor under state law for immigrants to have failed to register or to not possess proper proof of such registration when stopped for another primary offense such as a traffic violation.
It would require police to try to verify immigration status of anyone they suspect of being an illegal immigrant. Authorities could then turn over offenders to the federal government for deportation.
The proposal is similar to the legislation signed last week by Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer in what is considered the nation's toughest law against illegal immigration.
That law makes the failure to carry immigration documents a crime and directs police to question people about their immigration status and demand to see their documents if there is reason to suspect they are in the country illegally.