Kansas Lawmakers Take Action on Illegal Immigration Bills

Miami Herald: With her two children at her side, Sandra Romero said that aggressive enforcement of immigration laws tore her family apart. Her husband immigrated alone as a young man trying to escape civil war in Guatemala, helped his parents, and built a family. But immigration agents tracked him down after he tried to obtain legal residency after taking some bad legal advice. "We're not the same family that we were before," she said through tears at the front of Our Lady of the New Covenant Chapel at Newman University, one of several immigration vigils held across the state Tuesday. "Even they say they're not the happy children they used to be." In Kansas, it's been a tough year for illegal immigrants and their supporters. The difference has mainly been the election of Kris Kobach, one of the nation's most prominent proponents of tough immigration laws, as Kansas secretary of state. The Legislature has three major bills on the docket based on the belief that illegal immigration is harming the state's economy, burdening its universities and tainting its elections. Kobach, the co-author of Arizona's immigration bill, said Tuesday evening that many of the arguments against the bills are misleading.