Our View: Don’t We Have Bigger Issues to Tackle?
February 17, 2011 5 Comments
This morning we were greeted by an article from Jon Murray in the Indy Star discussing the possible side effects of Senator Mike Delph’s immigration bill. The article highlighted some of the problems Arizona experienced when passing a similar law including the loss of what may have amounted to $169 million dollars in convention business.
With a capitol city that made its mark as the amateur sports capitol of the world and is working to become a tier one city in the convention world, this isn’t exactly what anyone in Indianapolis wants to hear.
Do we really need to involve ourselves in such divisive issues? A Pew Research poll noted that Indiana has an estimated 120,000 illegal immigrants of an estimated 11.1 million in the country. We are talking about less than 2% of the population in Indiana and 1% of the national illegal immigrants in the entire country here in Indiana. Arizona was talking about 500,000 undocumented immigrants in 2008 and 10% of their workforce. Maybe, just maybe, this is an issue that Indiana should not have such as much interest in as someplace like Arizona.
We have evidence this could be harmful to our local economy and part of the district that Senator Mike Delph, the author of the bill, represents. For all the talk about jobs, the economy and creating business-friendly environments, legislation like this just does not make sense.
With the immigration bill and our “strong” stance on gay marriage, it seems as though some in our legislature are more focused on a very small percentage of Hoosiers at the expense of the vast majority.
But, hey, at least we can compete for the TEA Party convention. At this rate, they may be the only people who would consider us a welcoming state.
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