Tapio, Russell Campaign on Doomed Anti-Immigrant Bills

Two Republican Senators are trying to turn committee hearings in the Legislature into anti-immigrant don’t-come-bah-yahs to boost their campaigns for higher office.

Senator Neal Tapio (R-5/Watertown) is promoting his campaign for U.S. House by bringing the leading darks of the vile Islamophobia rallies that have been plaguing South Dakota for the past couple years to speechify in Senate State Affairs Wednesday morning. Tapio has invited Sharia paranoiacs Susan Tully, Leo Hohmann, Shahram Hadian, and Philip Haney to help him holler on Legislative time that “Lutheran Social Services, Community Development Corporations and the globalist meatpacking industry” are part of an “unholy alliance leaders with a Federal program that is one of the dirtiest secrets of paid influence in the halls of power in Pierre.” All this to promote Senate Bill 200, Tapio’s appalling Trumpist proposal to block family reunification and ban refugees from South Dakota. Stay tuned for practical questions from Senate State Affairs on whether all of Tapio’s out-of-state experts will come staff the checkpoints we will have to erect on every highway entry point into South Dakota to prevent individuals legally present in the United States from entering our state.

Senator Lance Russell (R-30/Hot Springs) is exploiting nativism to boost his bid for Attorney General. He drove all the way to Aberdeen Friday to tell twenty people about his Senate Bill 193, a grandstanding puff bill against “sanctuary cities.” House Judiciary sensibly killed SB 193’s House duplicate, HB 1260, last Wednesday; Senate Judiciary will likely dispose of SB 193 similarly on Thursday, since it isn’t necessary:

During his presentation, Russell said his reason for discussing his bill in Aberdeen was because Mayor Mike Levsen contacted Russell to note opposition to the proposal.

In a telephone interview later in the day, Levsen said the bill is “a solution looking for a problem.

Aberdeen is not looking to implement any policy addressed by Russell’s bill, Levsen said.

Yvonne Taylor, executive director of the South Dakota Municipal League, echoed those comments. She said South Dakota towns are not and will not be sanctuary cities — cities that limit communication with the federal government concerning immigrants and the prospect of deportation.

“There’s no reason to send a message to immigrants that they’re not welcome here,” Levsen said [Elisa Sand, “AG Candidate, State Senator Pitches Immigration Bill in Aberdeen,” Aberdeen American News, 2018.02.17].

Senator Russell waved some unsourced figures at his Aberdeen listeners—”over 5,000 estimated illegal immigrants” in South Dakota costing us taxpayers “over $32 million dollars [sic] annually.” The most prominent recent claim of illegal immigration costs by state comes from the anti-immigration Federation for American Immigration Reform, which pegs the taxpayer cost of illegal immigration in South Dakota at $36.9 million. This analysis from the Cato Institute finds FAIR’s estimate is anywhere from 7 to 35 times too high, thanks to a host of methodological errors, including counting the American-born citizen children of parents illegally present in the country.