Vitter’s Vice: Addicted to the Anti-Immigrant Message, Seeks to Use Census as Wedge

America's Voice Blog

Posted 10/08/09 at 06:12pm

Early in the summer, Republicans were tacking on a slew of lopsided immigration enforcement amendments to a DHS Appropriations bill. The charge was led mostly by Senator Sessions and his anti-immigrant cronies, one of which was Senator David Vitter (R-LA).

Now it looks as if Senator Vitter is back at again, fully charged with a fresh squeeze of xenophobia.

Yesterday, Vitter tried to deny Community Oriented Policing Services funding from going to cities that have sanctuary policies, where local law enforcement officials can refuse to report undocumented immigrants who are victims and witnesses of crimes to ICE. But according to the Department of Justice, law enforcement agencies don’t have to:

The mandatory provisions of Penal Code section 834b concerning cooperation, verification, and notification with respect to persons arrested who are suspected of being present in the United States in violation of federal immigration laws are not subject to enforcement by local law enforcement officers.

Unfortunately for Vitter, more Senators understood that taking away community policing funds from big cities (that are big in crime too) would further endanger public safety, whether that public be undocumented or not. His amendment was defeated.

But relentlessly, as if that wasn’t enough, he then introduced Amendment #2644 to the Commerce, Justice and Science Appropriations bill that would require questions in the census that would inquire as to a person’s citizenship and immigration status. The problem? Well, besides wasting taxpayer dollars (Congress has already spent billions of dollars researching, designing and planning the 2010 census), it would discourage people from participating in the Census, which must, according to this country’s Constitution, count all people living in the United States.

As Terri Ann Lowenthal writes on the Census Project Blog:

Let’s just look at why the amendment is the height of irresponsible and misinformed legislating: If enacted, the 2010 census would come to a halt. It would be delayed for who knows how long, and with that, apportionment and subsequent redistricting wouldn’t happen either.

And why is this important? According to SEIU:

It is in peoples’ best interest to be counted because the US Census is how our country makes decisions about allocation of resources and local representation, regardless of race or immigration status.

You can still tell your Senator to vote NO, and help stop this nasty amendment from passing