Running Over Illegal Immigrants

May 14, 2010

Imagine going to a Tea Party or Michigan Militia meeting, grabbing the microphone, and saying: “What we need is to give the police more power over our private lives in this state.

“Michigan cops need the power to demand proof of citizenship from anyone they happen to stop, for any reason. If someone can’t produce a birth certificate, or papers proving citizenship, the police should be able to arrest him and haul him off to jail.”

Depending on the mood, those words might get you tarred and feathered. That sounds like something out of Casablanca — or a scene anywhere in Nazi or Soviet-occupied Europe. My guess is that put that way, a lot of people would see such a law as still more proof of a big government conspiracy to snoop into our lives.

Yet State Rep. Kim Meltzer, a Republican from mostly blue-collar Macomb County, thinks this is exactly what Michigan needs.

Arizona passed a controversial new law this spring that gives police sweeping new powers to crack down on suspected illegal immigrants. She wants a similar law here.

“It just makes sense for Michigan, with all of its national boundaries, to enact similar security for our citizens,” she said last week. “State law enforcement officers must be given the proper level of training and authority to provide this basic level of protection.”

If you weren’t aware that Michigan has a huge illegal immigrant problem, there’s a good reason: it doesn’t.

Michigan has far fewer illegal immigrants than the national average. The U.S. Census Bureau estimated the state had only about 70,000 illegal immigrants 10 years ago, compared to a million in Texas.

Other estimates of Michigan’s illegal immigrant population are slightly higher, say about 110,000. But in any rate, the state is scarcely overrun. The Pew Hispanic Center, in fact, says the number of Michigan illegals is actually decreasing.

But Kim Meltzer, a 46-year-old small business owner from the small town of Romeo, thinks the state needs an Arizona-type law, and says she’s given a proposal to the legislative drafting service to shape into a bill. This drew swift and angry reaction.

Emily Diaz-Torres, who runs the Macomb Hispanic and International Service Center, called the proposal “absolutely unacceptable” and vowed to fight it. Kary Moss, executive director of the Michigan ACLU, said that if Meltzer’s bill ever sees the light of day, her group would fight it in both the legislature and the courts.

Why Kim Meltzer thinks illegal immigration is a major problem in Michigan is not clear. Her reference to “national boundaries” evidently means the state’s border with Canada, which is hardly porous and already monitored by customs and immigration officials.

Nor are there signs that vast hordes of Canadians, most of whom are quite happy with their country and its health care system, are plotting to slip across the river in the dead of night.

Most experts think Michigan’s real problems are the highest jobless rate in the nation and a state government that’s chronically broke. The available evidence indicates a crackdown on “illegal immigrants” could make these problems worse, not better.

The Arizona law doesn’t even take effect until July, but it has already had a heavily negative effect on the state’s economy. The Los Angeles City Council voted to ban doing business with Arizona.

Other groups were swiftly doing the same. A Phoenix city official estimated that the anti-immigrant law could cost his city at least $90 million in convention business over the next five years.

The odds would seem to be heavily stacked against Michigan enacting an Arizona-style anti-immigrant bill anytime soon.

Democrats, many of whom are members of minority groups, solidly control the state House of Representatives. Hispanic voters are most resentful of anti-immigration efforts, followed closely by Arab-Americans, who are a presence and a rising power in Michigan.

Even some Republicans are reluctant to offend these groups. They are even more leery of anything that might be seen as hurting the economy or costing the state convention business.

Why, then, is Meltzer on an Arizona-style crusade? A cynic might think it has something to do with the fact that she is now running for the state Senate, and is in a tough race against two better-known foes with solid right-wing credentials.

Jack Brandenburg is a former state representative who helped lead the fight to ban affirmative action in the state. Leon Drolet, also a former legislator, is best known for driving around Lansing towing a huge fiberglass pink pig, that he calls “Mr. Perks,” and for attempting to recall legislators who favor any kind of tax increases.

In that company, Meltzer needed to do something to distinguish herself from the crowd, and she may have calculated that illegal immigration was the best issue that hadn’t yet been taken.

But will it work for her?

Only the August primary election will tell.

Veteran journalist and national Emmy Award winner Jack Lessenberry teaches at Wayne State University, serves as Michigan Radio’s senior political analyst and writes regularly for several publications. He also serves as The Toledo Blade’s writing coach and ombudsman and is host of the weekly television show Deadline Now on WGTE-TV in Toledo.