A highly debated bill that would prohibit Arkansas cities and towns from enacting "sanctuary" immigration policies was recommended for passage by a House committee on Tuesday, setting up a potential floor debate for the last day of the legislative session.
Senate Bill 411, by Sen. Gary Stubblefield, R-Branch, had appeared to be on its last legs at the start of the week, failing in an initial House committee vote Monday even as legislative leaders announced plans to adjourn today. The House Committee on City, County and Local Affairs, however, took up the bill for a second time Tuesday, and recommended it on a party-line vote.
If the House passes the measure today, it will be sent to Gov. Asa Hutchinson. The governor has expressed reservations about the bill, saying it would create an "opportunity for racial profiling."
Hutchinson had requested that the bill be amended to require that police use probable cause when asking people about their nationality, but no amendments were offered before the bill passed out of the committee.
"We're going to wait and see what happens on the House floor," Hutchinson spokesman J.R. Davis said Tuesday.
In addition to giving discretion to law enforcement across the state to question people about their citizenship or immigration status, SB411 would prevent localities from enacting any policies -- either written or unwritten -- that limit law enforcement's ability to cooperate with federal immigration authorities, or which otherwise grant migrants "the right to lawful presence" within the community.
[RELATED: Complete Democrat-Gazette coverage of the Arkansas Legislature]
If enacted into law, the bill would require the state to withhold funds from any localities with such "sanctuary policies."
Neither the bill's sponsors nor the Arkansas Municipal League, which opposes SB411, has identified any cities in the state that have such policies.
Prior to the vote Tuesday, the committee's vice chairman, Rep. Fred Love, D-Little Rock, had attempted to delay any action on the measure pending an analysis of potential costs to localities. Love was overruled by the chairman, Rep. Lanny Fite, R-Benton, who said such an analysis was unnecessary.
Mireya Reith, the executive director of Arkansas United Community Coalition, an activist group based in Northwest Arkansas, said the law would conflict with constitutional protections for due process, creating likely costs through litigation.
"There's definitely going to be costs in regards to oversight as well as to the [attorney general]," Reith said. "As soon as this is enacted, it won't be difficult at all to identify plaintiffs with whom we're going to be able to work with national partners to pursue lawsuits."
Reith and other activists spent early Tuesday trying to persuade lawmakers to abandon the effort this session. Democrats, the minority in the House, have opposed the bill.
Republicans on the House City, County and Local Affairs Committee, however, described a backlash from their supporters after SB411 failed the day before. The earlier vote at first appeared to pass on a voice vote, but a subsequent roll call showed that not enough Republicans were in their seats to support the bill. On Tuesday, almost every seat in the committee was filled.
"This is something that we don't want to go back to our districts and say we didn't support," said Rep. Brant Smith, R-Jonesboro, the House sponsor of SB411.
Smith and Stubblefield put forward legislation in 2017 to prevent localities or colleges from enacting sanctuary policies, though neither bill made it out of committee.
Nationally, nine states have passed anti-sanctuary laws, including Arkansas neighbors Texas, Missouri, Tennessee and Missouri, according to the Pew Charitable Trusts.
Meanwhile, 10 states had statewide sanctuary policies, mostly in the Northeast and on the West Coast.
Information for this article was contributed by Jeannie Roberts of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.
Metro on 04/10/2019