Arkansas Legislature Looks at Illegal Immigration Bill

NECN: An Arkansas lawmaker pushing to prohibit the state from providing non-emergency benefits to illegal immigrants doesn't deny the chief argument against his proposal: that it would cut off services for children and pre-natal care the state provides. Rep. Jon Hubbard, who is expected to present his measure to a House panel this week, said he doesn't like that the legislation he's backing would affect those services. But the freshman Republican lawmaker from Jonesboro said that's the only way to stop the flow of illegal immigrants. "I'm not an ogre," Hubbard said last week. "I'm not trying to be somebody that's hard on the kids. The kids are an innocent victim of this, just like the citizens of this state are innocent." Hubbard's proposal, which is expected to go before the House State Agencies and Governmental Affairs Committee on Wednesday, would bar the state agencies from providing benefits to anyone in the country illegally. The proposal would not apply to cases involving emergency or life-saving measures. The problem, Gov. Mike Beebe and other state officials say, is it would go too far by denying other essential services to some of the most vulnerable in the state. "You're talking about taking health care away from unborn children, you're talking about taking health care away from disabled children, you're talking about taking mammograms away from women to detect breast cancer," Beebe spokesman Matt DeCample said. "And that's all pretty dangerous stuff. ... By just his conscience, the governor cannot support any bill that deprives unborn children of health care or deprives developmentally disabled children from the help they need."