Arizona Governor Jan Brewer last month touched off a firestorm when she signed into law new measures that empower state and local police officers to enforce federal immigration laws. Brewer said she became so frustrated with the federal government’s failure to enact meaningful reform that she decided Arizona had to act on its own. “There is no higher priority than protecting the citizens of Arizona. We cannot sacrifice our safety to the murderous greed of drug cartels," Brewer said at the bill-signing ceremony. "We cannot stand idly by as drop houses, kidnappings and violence compromise our quality of life. We cannot delay while the destruction happening south of our international border creeps its way north."

Arizona, with more than 400,000 illegal immigrants, has seen an uptick in drug-related violence and the number of illegal aliens streaming in as other southwestern states toughened their border defenses. Arizona’s state and local police now are required to ascertain a person’s immigration status whenever there is “reasonable suspicion that the person is an alien“ during the process of any “lawful contact.” It creates a new crime for those who willfully fail to complete or carry an alien-registration document. Arizona’s Hispanic community took to the streets in protest while other civil-rights groups have taken to the courts filing multiple suits to block the law.

In Pennsylvania, the number of illegal aliens is pegged at about 140,000. That’s too many in the opinion of Rep. Metcalfe who says his legislation would model that of Arizona. Metcalfe says he wants to remove the economic incentives that attract illegal aliens to reside here. A study by the Federation for American Immigration Reform puts the annual cost per Pennsylvania household at about $150 to educate, incarcerate and pay the health care costs of illegal aliens. That’s a total of about $720 million a year.

Metcalfe’s bill would direct police officers to try to verify the immigration status of suspected illegal aliens. He says an officer could not stop a person without reason and could only check for proper residency paperwork if the person had been stopped for another primary offense, like a traffic violation. (Stu Bykofsky, a columnist for the Philadelphia Daily News, argues Arizona's law isn't much different from Philadelphia's current police policy, while the Allentown Morning Call's Paul Carpenter raises a ruckus over Metcalfe's legislation.)

"You cannot stop somebody just because they're Hispanic, black or white or Indian," Metcalfe stated in announcing the bill. "There is no profiling based on race. It is totally profiling based on somebody breaking the law."

And he doesn’t let employers who hire illegals avoid penalty. Business owners are supposed to check a federally mandated database to determine a worker's legal status. The bill would create a new third-class felony "for intentionally smuggling illegal aliens for profit" and would let police officers "impound any vehicle driven by an illegal alien or used to transport illegal aliens."

Lancaster County Republican State Representative Tom Creighton is a co-sponsor of Metcalfe’s bill and will join our panel on Friday night. He told the Lancaster Intelligencer-Journal last week the threat to jobs drove his support. "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," Creighton said.

Groups like FAIR, the Federal Immigration Reform and Enforcement Coalition, Citizens for Immigration Control, and the Hispanic-American group, “You Don’t Speak for Me,” support states cracking down on illegal immigration.

Democratic State Senator Daylin Leach (Montgomery County) opposes Metcalfe’s bill and Arizona’s new law. He says they invite “harassment, discrimination and racism.” “The law says that if the police make “any lawful contact” with a person, they may investigate their immigration status if they have “reasonable suspicion” that that person could be here illegally,” Leach argues. ‘”Any lawful contact” is such a breathtakingly broad standard it could mean literally any contact. It need not require suspicion that said person has committed a crime. … Comprehensive immigration reform is imperative. But any action we take must be consistent with America’s character and our values as a people. Legalized racial profiling is neither.”

Leach, instead, is sponsoring legislation (SB 1070) to codify that no Pennsylvania state or local law enforcement agency has any power or obligation to enforce or investigate an individual’s compliance with federal immigration law. Leach’s bill would not prevent police, however, from sharing with federal immigration officials any relevant information they gain from an arrest or investigation. And it further states that neither race nor ethnicity can be used as a “relevant factor” in the investigation of immigration matters.

Andrea Morato-Lara, president and CEO of the Pennsylvania Association of Latino Organizations, opposes Metcalfe's bill and would prefer that states leave immigration enforcement to the federal government. She also will appear on our panel. The American Civil Liberties Union, the Interfaith Alliance of Pennsylvania, the Governor's Advisory Commission on Latino Affairs, and the Pennsylvania Farm Bureau are among the groups opposing state efforts to stem illegal immigration. We welcome you to watch Smart Talk Friday night at 8:30 and send your comments about immigration reform to This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

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