LINCOLN, Neb.—A Nebraska lawmaker threw a political grenade Tuesday into a compromise bill designed to deter illegal immigration.
Freshman Sen. Charlie Janssen of Fremont has proposed amending the bill to overturn a state law that lets some children of illegal immigrants pay the lower, in-state college tuition rate.
In doing so, he resurrected a touchy topic that stalled a similar illegal immigration bill in the Judiciary Committee last year.
The illegal immigration bill (LB403) includes proposals from Sen. Russ Karpisek of Wilber and Sen. Brad Ashford of Omaha, but Karpisek omitted any mention of the in-state tuition program to keep the issue from torpedoing the entire proposal.
“Please, please, please, let’s vote this down,” Ashford said of Janssen’s amendment. Ashford has worked since last session to forge the compromise bill. “Please don’t trash this thing.”
Senators adjourned Tuesday without voting on the amendment or the bill and will return to them Wednesday morning, Speaker Mike Flood said.
If they approve Janssen’s amendment, Flood said he’ll send the entire bill back to committee because it makes a significant change and should have another public hearing. There could be enough opposition in Judiciary Committee to an in-state tuition provision to stall the bill again this year.
It would take 25 senators to override Flood.
The original bill is aimed at curbing illegal immigration by requiring public employers, public contractors and companies seeking tax breaks to use the federal E-Verify system to ensure new hires are legal residents. It also would require that state and local agencies verify the legal status of anyone trying to collect public benefits, including food stamps, unemployment, public housing, welfare and retirement.
Critics say existing federal laws already bar illegal immigrants from receiving public benefits.
Janssen said the bill doesn’t go far enough, and he called the employment verification part “a watered-down way of saying we are tough on illegal immigration in the Legislature.”
Janssen formerly served on the Fremont City Council, where tensions about illegal immigration reached a boiling point last year. The council voted down an ordinance that would have mandated use of E-Verify as part of a proposal to ban hiring illegal immigrants or renting housing to them.
The Fremont council planned to discuss a similar proposal Tuesday evening.
Fremont is one of a handful of Nebraska cities that has seen marked demographic changes primarily because of mostly Hispanic work forces at meatpacking plants. The issue of undocumented workers has stirred strong feelings, and last year a hearing on Fremont’s ordinance drew more than 1,000 people in the community of 25,000.
Nebraska politicians have seen firsthand the political risk that comes from supporting the so-called “Nebraska Dream Act”—the in-state tuition law—which state lawmakers approved over Gov. Dave Heineman’s veto in 2006.
Heineman used his veto to great advantage in the 2006 Republican gubernatorial primary: Many voters said they chose Heineman over Tom Osborne, a sitting U.S. representative and wildly popular former Nebraska football coach, because Osborne supported the tuition bill.
In a pre-session survey by The Associated Press, 26 senators answered “yes” when asked whether the state should eliminate the in-state tuition provision.
Only two senators answered “no.” The rest marked unsure, skipped the question or didn’t participate in the survey.
To get in-state tuition, illegal immigrants must graduate from a Nebraska high school and must be pursuing, or promise to pursue, legal status. They also must have been residents of the state for at least three years.
At least 22 students in the University of Nebraska system are benefiting from the tuition break, spokeswoman Kelly Bartling said Tuesday. That doesn’t include the University of Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha.
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