On Monday, March 14 House Bill 343: Support Law Enforcement/Safe Neighborhoods was filed in the North Carolina legislature. We see the mastery of messaging at work with the deceitful title in this bill since it aims to relegate anyone who would dare oppose it by making an argument that the individual does not support law enforcement or safe communities. This is by far, the most comprehensive, anti-immigrant bill introduced in the NC General Assembly to date.

            This law would make it a state crime to be in North Carolina without possession (on one's person) of valid immigration documents.  It also would not only permit but require law enforcement officers to question anyone they stop for any reason concerning their immigration status, and require them to detain anyone they suspect of not being in this country legally.  Any citizen could bring a charge against a law enforcement department or individual officer who does not enforce this law. 

            To this extent, the proposed law is pretty much identical to the law in Arizona that has caused many organizations and business groups to boycott Arizona, and caused the US Department of Justice to sue the state. 

Obviously, these representatives are not concerned with the need to balance our state's budget if they are willing to spend potentially millions of dollars defending our state against the law suits that are guaranteed to arise from this law should it be passed.

             But this proposed new law goes far beyond the Arizona law.  For example, HB343 would require all city and county employees to report anyone who is suspected of being in this country without proper documents.  This would include employees of departments of social services (with the exception of Child Welfare staff investigating a case of neglect or abuse) and health department employees.

            HB343 limits the number and types of documents that could be used to prove legal residence in such a way that many US Citizens could have a difficult time proving their right to be here. Moreover, the law would potentially criminalize anyone, including religious groups and charitable organizations that provide any form of transportation or assistance to a person whose legal status is in question.  The way this proposed law is written, anyone who, for example, is teaching English or providing food, or transporting to a meeting a group of immigrants who happen to be undocumented, could potentially be charged with a "Class G felony."

The proposed law would ban any undocumented person from taking "any class" at a state-funded community college or university, thus eliminating the English classes and GED courses that many immigrants take today.

 Lets tell our representatives that this is not right and we don't want any more of it!