http://www.charlotte.com/mld/charlotte/news/13280552.htm
3 want services tied to legal status
Commissioners also want immigration to be probed in contracts, jail
JIM MORRILL
Three Mecklenburg County commissioners are wading into the national debate over immigration by proposing to cut off county services to undocumented residents.
The three Republicans also want the county to stop contracting with companies that employ illegal immigrants.
"If you are illegal in this country, you will get no services from government, you will get no hiding places from businesses that deal with government," Commissioner Bill James said Monday. James and fellow commissioners Dan Bishop and Jim Puckett plan to raise the issue at next week's board meeting.
They want the county to join a growing movement by local governments to deal with illegal immigration in the absence of a strong federal enforcement policy. Immigration is a federal issue.
President Bush touted new immigration proposals Monday in Arizona, but Congress isn't expected to act until early next year. There are an estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants in America, including 330,000 in the Carolinas.
Some local governments in other states are trying to address the problem by curbing services and authorizing local law enforcement officials to enforce federal immigration laws. Mecklenburg's Democratic commissioners said they would act cautiously.
"It certainly is a popular political issue," said Chairman Parks Helms. "We need to be very careful on how we become involved with it ... We ought to make sure we're following the proper rules and regulations."
What might happen to the proposal is unclear. Democrats control the board and issues often break along party lines.
The county administers a variety of social service programs, including welfare and food stamps, which are primarily federally funded. This month more than 32,000 county households received food stamps. More than 3,400 people got welfare payments.
Federal rules already make illegal residents ineligible for those programs, said Brenda Jackson, deputy director of the county's Department of Social Services.
James said the proposed ban would reach to other county services such as mental health centers and detox centers as well as the many private agencies that get county dollars. Those include the uptown men's homeless shelter, Legal Services and even the Latin American Coalition.
"This is just an opportunity for the county to do its part," said Bishop. "Taxpayers, we think, would generally support the idea that taxpayer-funded benefits and programs are for citizens and legal aliens and should be limited to those populations."
An N.C. legislative proposal to limit benefits died this year. So did a similar proposal in Gaston County, which failed because of legal restrictions.
Angeles Ortega-Moore, director of the Latin American Coalition, said few illegal immigrants use county services to start with.
"Most undocumenteds do not go after taxpayer-funded programs like food stamps and Medicaid," she said. "They know they don't qualify and they have a fear of being found out."
Democratic commissioner Jennifer Roberts said a ban may not be practical.
"Do you think homeless people are going to have documents of any kind?" she said.
The GOP commissioners' proposal also would require companies that contract with the county to verify they have no illegal employees.
It's against the law for employers to knowingly hire undocumented immigrants. But in the Carolinas, no employer has been fined in at least two years -- even though more than 150,000 illegal immigrants are believed to hold jobs.
In their draft proposal, the Republican commissioners allude to this month's death of UNC Charlotte freshman Min Chang. He died when his car was hit by a vehicle going the wrong way on Interstate 485. It was allegedly driven by Jorge Humberto Hernandez Soto, who had entered this country illegally at least 17 times.
The GOP commissioners also want the sheriff to identify jail inmates who are illegal and then charge them with violating immigration laws and turn them over to federal authorities.
Sheriff Jim Pendergraph said he does his best to identify illegal immigrants now. But he said it's hard to do without direct access to immigration files. And he said unless the inmates have committed a felony, federal officials rarely hold them.
"Until Congress and the federal government and the president decide this is an issue we want to tackle, it's not going to get any better," he said. -- Staff writer Dánica Coto contributed.
