This seems like a really good idea here in Texas. Any idea if there is support to do these kinds of checks on the state or local level??


June 9, 2008
NY Times
States Take New Tack on Illegal Immigration
By DAMIEN CAVE

MILTON, Fla. � Three months after the local police inspected more than a dozen businesses searching for illegal immigrants using stolen Social Security numbers, this community in the Florida Panhandle has become more law-abiding, emptier and whiter. Many of the Hispanic immigrants who came in 2004 to help rebuild after Hurricane Ivan have either fled or gone into hiding. Churches with services in Spanish are half-empty. Businesses are struggling to find workers.

....

Sheriff Wendell Hall of Santa Rosa County, who led the effort, said the arrests were for violations of state identity theft laws. But he also seemed proud to have found a way around rules allowing only the federal government to enforce immigration laws. In his office, the sheriff displayed a framed editorial cartoon that showed Daniel Boone admiring his arrest of at least 27 illegal workers. His approach is increasingly common. Last month, 260 illegal immigrants in Iowa were sentenced to five months in prison for violations of federal identity theft laws.

At the same time, in the last year, local police departments from coast to coast have rounded up hundreds of immigrants for nonviolent, often minor, crimes, like fishing without a license in Georgia, with the end result being deportation.

For the rest of the article:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/09/us/09panhandle.html?_r=2&ei=5065&oref=slogin&partner=MYWAY&pagewanted=print&oref=slogin