A bill that would have penalized Wyomingites for helping non-U.S. citizens and required law enforcement to check immigrant status when giving citations was killed on the senate floor Monday evening.
Despite heavy amendments to get Goshen County Republican Sen. Cheri Steinmetz’s bill out of committee, legislators ultimately killed the bill on the senate floor with a 20-10 vote.
Like many other lawmakers in the room, Sen. Bo Biteman, president of the Senate and fellow Republican, said Monday night his opposition to the bill was not because of the subject matter, though he took concerns with earlier iterations of the bill.
“At what point do we pull the plug on some of these bills that aren’t quite ready for prime time?” Biteman said, noting it was already past 8 p.m. “Trying to drag bills across the finish line that are so heavily amended and so in need of a lot of work, I don’t think it does this chamber justice.”
Monday was a deadline day, so senators stayed late to hear the bill, which for Jackson Democrat Sen. Mike Gierau was the most controversial bill of the session.
“This is the most dangerous bill I’ve ever seen in my time in the legislature with the most dangerous ramifications possible,” Gierau said Friday, minutes before the bill narrowly passed the Senate Appropriations Committee 3-2.
If signed into law, the bill would have required police to check citizenship status at a traffic stop, for instance, or when giving other citations. Drivers licenses wouldn’t be proof enough of citizenship, either.
For Gierau, this type of legislation is worrisome. It’s not out of place during a session dominated by bills targeting non-citizens.
“In the America I live in, you’re innocent until proven guilty. In this bill, you’re guilty until you can prove that you’re innocent,”Gireau told KHOL.
Anyone who knowingly transported a non-citizen, would have faced up to five years in prison, a $5,000 fine or both. Employers would have faced hefty fines for each undocumented person they hire.
For Gierau, the bill evoked some of the state’s darkest parts of history.
After calling the bill “Orwellian,” Gireau compared the bill to World War II legislation that led to the Heart Mountain internment camp outside Cody that once forcibly held Japanese-Americans.
“This [bill] is not that far off that. It turns [Wyoming] into a police state,” Gireau said.
An online petition titled “Stop SF0124: Protect Immigrant Rights & Prevent Discriminatory Policing” garnered over a thousand signatures ahead of the vote.
Alexis Soto, a teacher and restaurant worker in Cheyenne married to an undocumented immigrant working to acquire papers, shared her concerns about the tricky position it would put schools in.
“How am I going to be at risk of going to prison for working with students that I knowingly know are undocumented, but I can’t share who they are ?” Soto asked during the Tuesday Senate Judiciary Committee’s hearing. “How can I go to prison for being married to someone who is undocumented?”
The bill would have also put law enforcement in a pinch.
Wyoming Sheriffs and Chief of Police representative Allen Thompson testified that the language risked promoting racial profiling.
Thompson added that the language in the initial draft indicated that police would be required to check citizenship status during all contact with the public, something he felt was not a “sustainable nor warranted” ask.
ACLU spokesperson Antonio Serrano also testified against the bill on Feb. 7 and said it could have brought about legal cases and accompanying fees for the state.
“We see this bill as a vast government overreach that harms working families and takes away local control from law enforcement and erodes trust,” Serrano said.
Cheyenne resident Sara Melendez shared similar concerns on Friday.
“This bill targets U.S. citizens that have an association with someone who’s undocumented by imposing a felony. This bill takes non-criminals and makes them criminals, puts them in the same category as murderers, rapists and robbers for simply living and driving,” Melendez said.
Though SF124 died in the senate, Melendez’s fear is still relevant. A bill that would nullify drivers licenses and require immigrant status on identification cards is still on the docket for legislators.
While several other immigration related bills have died in the legislature session so far, there are still more bills that target immigrants that await a deciding vote.
House Bill 133, which would threaten state funds for any jurisdiction that declares itself a sanctuary to immigrants, was recently passed along to the senate. It would also threaten sheriffs and police chiefs with jail time if they failed to report non-U.S. citizens to federal agencies.
