TESTIMONY FOR SENATE JUDICIARY COMMITTEE
JANUARY 6, 2011
IN OPPOSITION TO SB 6, AN ACT RELATING TO UNAUTHORIZED ALIENS
Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, I want to start by thanking you for
dedicating some time to a discussion of SB 6 and for allowing the Catholic Conference of
Kentucky to offer its comments today. The four bishops who comprise the Conference
are pastors to more than 400,000 Catholics in Kentucky, many of whom would bear the
brunt of the implementation of this legislation. On Tuesday I had a letter distributed
which described our opposition to this bill and raised a number of concerns about its
content and implementation.
I don’t want to repeat today the content of that letter except to remind the committee that
we have worked for years to help repair this broken system of immigration by calling
upon Congress to do its job and enact comprehensive immigration reform, the only true
solution to the mess we are in. After years of reflection on the Holy Bible and on our own
understanding of God’s plan and how it affects the common good of society we
developed criteria by which we judge efforts to address this broken system.
To garner our support any legislative proposal would have to include the following
elements:
1. a broad-based process of earned legalization for
undocumented persons;
2. a temporary worker program with appropriate protections
for both U.S. and foreign workers;
3. changes to the family-based immigration system to reduce
waiting times for family reunification; and
4. the restoration of due process for immigrants.
We understand and share in the frustration of state lawmakers who have been failed by
their counterparts in Congress and now seek to respond to the citizens’ desire to see
something done. But SB 6 fails to contain the necessary elements stated above. It is
impossible for a state to meet these criteria because reform must be completed at the
federal level. While we hope that Congress will fulfill its obligation to reform this
system, we are concerned that state and other local legislation not create new problems
for families or have a negative impact on public safety. Enforcement only legislation such
as that enacted in Arizona and the bill proposed here modeled on the AZ measure is the
wrong answer to the question of what can we do to fix immigration.
The Kentucky State Police have already taken an opportunity to partner with the
Department of Homeland Security Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) by
entering into a Memorandum of Understanding in April 2010 to participate in the Secure
Communities program, “a comprehensive ICE initiative that focuses on the identification
and removal of aliens who are convicted of a serious criminal offense and are subject to
removal, including the utilization of advanced biometric and communications technology
to share information among law enforcement agencies (LEAs) to identify, detain and
remove from the United States aliens who have been convicted of a serious criminal
offense and are subject to removal.”
Perhaps the committee should withhold action on SB 6 until it can hear from State Police
officials about the effectiveness of this agreement and what impact it is having in the
state and compare that response to statements of persons who have been impacted by the
passage of SB 1070 in AZ. I have sworn declarations from 10 persons familiar with that
legislation — local law enforcement personnel, employees of ICE, and an assistant
Secretary of State — who speak of serious, certainly unintentional, consequences of that
bill’s enactment. I will be happy to submit these in full should anyone wish to read them
in their entirety.
Mr. Tony Estrada is a County Sheriff with more than 40 years of experience in law
enforcement and he states: “SB 1070 undermines my ability to set law enforcement
priorities for my agency. As the Sheriff, I am responsible for setting my agency’s law
enforcement priorities. My top priority is investigating, preventing and deterring the most
violent and serious crimes. This new law requires me to expend substantial and already
scarce resources on immigration matters at the expense of combating serious crime.” Will
SB 6 also prevent the combating of serious crime?
Mr. Jack Harris, chief of the police department in Phoenix, the 5" largest city in the U.S.,
Chief Harris states: “Immigration law and immigration status is a very complex area, and
local law enforcement cannot possibly be experts in all the different ways a person can be
lawfully or unlawfully present. Thus, officers will heavily rely on ICE to provide
guidance to verify a person’s status. ICE cannot handle the amount of calls it currently
receives from local law enforcement. With this new law it will be even more difficult to
have ICE assist in investigations.” Is this the impact you are seeking for Kentucky?
Mr. Roberto Villasenor, Chief of Police in Tucson, and a 30 year veteran of law
enforcement states: While I understand the impetus for legislation addressing illegal
immigration issues, with Arizona bearing the brunt of the negative impact of illegal
immigration that passes into our nation through this state, my concern is that these laws
amount to an unfunded mandate that impose a Federal responsibility on local law
enforcement. In an era of shrinking governmental budgets, local police authorities will be
forced to assume a role not unlike that of at least two major Federal enforcement
agencies, and with not an additional cent from the state to do so.”
Who is paying for this and how much it will cost in Kentucky are legitimate questions.
The Conference considers our state budge a moral document and when we hear sworn
declarations such as these we worry about who wins and who loses. There is no fiscal
note attached to this bill as required by KRS 6.955 so we do not know the cost of this
legislation, but suspect it will be in the millions of dollars, at the expense of addressing
actual serious needs that Kentucky has, rather than creating an illusion of doing so with
SB 6.
I know we do not have time to hear statements from the other sworn declarations, but I
assure you each person describes how the Arizona legislation has negatively impacted
their ability to do effective work in the area of immigration enforcement. If this Kentucky
clone becomes law, we can expect to see more of the same.
So for failure to include elements of real reform and because its contents appear to have a
negative impact on repairing a broken system the Conference opposes SB 6 and urges its
withdrawal or defeat. Thank you very much for your time.
