MW: Midwest Immigration and Integration Act (As Amended)

[LeBron]

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Sponsor: Speaker LeBron FitzGerald on VP Windjammer's behalf.

This bill will stay on the floor until 7:30 pm EST July 27th (2 weeks). The bill as amended includes a money figure configuration in Part 3, Section 2. I'll give my thoughts in a little awhile.

[LeBron]

Midwest Immigration and Integration Act

Preamble
1)Considering that Immigration and Integration don't seem to have been federally and locally an important issue, it's the Althing's duty to act on these issues.
2)Immigrants aren't a thread to the Midwest, but a necessity. We, Midwesterners, must foster the integration of Immigrants and fight against racism everywhere in the Midwest.
3)All Midwest laws concerning Immigration are hereby repealed.

Part 1: Legal Immigration
Section 1: Language
   1)The official language of the Midwest region is English. All Midwest public documents shall be written in English.
2)However, considering the importance of Hispanic minorities, a translation into Spanish  of all Midwest public documents shall be available.
3)A budget of $200,000,000 will be allocated to help Minorities to learn English.


Section 2  Legal Immigrants without American Nationality
1) Legal Immigrants, who live in the Midwest for at least one year and are at least 18 years of age , shall have the opportunity to vote in local and regional elections
2)Considering that the current former Midwest Governor is foreign-born, legal immigrants, who live in the Midwest for at least one year and are at least 18 years of age, shall have the opportunity to be eligible for local and regional offices.
3)Legal immigrants shall enroll their children in private or public schools.


Section 3:Protect our legal immigrants
1)Not being an American citizen shall not constitute grounds for termination of employment.
2)No segregation based along nationality shall be allowed in the Midwest.
3)Except the right to vote in federal elections, Legal immigrants shall have the same rights as Midwesterners.



Part 2: Illegal Immigration
Section 1 : Anti Vichy
1)The Midwest Police shall not be able to take into account anonymous reports for arresting illegal immigrants.
2)The Midwest Police shall not to be able to determine the immigration status of anyone they stop or arrest if there is reason to suspect that the individual might be an illegal immigrant.
3)Immigrants shall not be arrested close to educational institutions.

Section 2: Illegal immigrants rights
1)Illegal immigrants shall be able to get a legal job. When they get a legal job, illegal immigrants and their family shall not be arrested anymore.
2)Illegal immigrants shall have access to social security, they shall have access to hospitals without the risk of being deported.  Illegal immigrants shall be able to benefit from education bursaries.
3)Illegal immigrants shall be able to make complaints without the risk of being arrested. Illegal immigrants are first of all humans.

Section 3: Atlasia
1)The Midwest Government strongly encourages Atlasia to make path to citizenship and nationality easier.
2)The Midwest Government strongly encourages Atlasia to amnesty illegal immigrants.
3)The Midwest Government strongly encourages Atlasia not to spend too much money in order to secure Atlasian borders.  




Part 3: Fight against Racism, inegalities,..
Section 1: Reducing geographical disparities
1)Every Midwest city over 3.500 inhabitants shall have at least 10% subsidised housing in total property for rent.
2)Subsidized housing is government supported funding or financial assistance for its citizens to help provide or afford housing. Forms of subsidies include direct mortgage interest deductions, housing subsidies, non-profit housing, public housing, rent supplements and some forms of co-operative and private sector housing,
3)A budget of $2,000,000,000 shall be allocated to help cities for this purpose.


Section 2: Positive discrimination
1)5% of all Midwest Public universities shall be reserved for non-white students.
2)A budget of $2,000,000,000 shall be allocated to help Midwest schools suffering from a poor academic performance.
3) A budget of $500,000,000 shall be allocated to help disabled students through tutoring, counseling, language classes and other academic services.

Section 3: Fight against racism, antisemitism,...
1)All dissemination of ideas based on racial superiority or hatred, incitement to racial discrimination, as well as all acts of violence or incitement to such acts against any race, any religion, or group of persons of another colour and of another religion, shall be forbitdden in the Midwest.  Any Violation is subject to a $45,000 fine.
2)Every Midwest school shall at least  promote tolerance 6 hours per year for every student.
3)A budget of $10,000,000 shall be allocated to promote tolerance everywhere in the Midwest.


Conclusion: Implementation
1)Part 1, Part 3 Section 2 shall come into effect January 1, 2015.
2)Part 2, Part 3 Section 3 shall come into effect upon the passage of this legislation.
3)Part 3, Section 1 shall come into effect January 1,2015.

Okay, this bill is awesome and it easily passed the first time since we desperately needed to do something with the immigration issue. It only has a few, minor slip-ups imo, but I'm still going to offer this redraft. I attached a few pieces of wording and crossed out a few phrases/sentences that I fear could be unconstitutional.

[LeBron]

I'll be introducing some amendments when I have some more time, but my main concern is I do not like making English the official language of the Midwest. I cannot vote for this bill if that remains in the bill.

Why?

I feel like its unnecessary and xenophobic. I am not a fan of the English first/only movement. I would be in favor of changing the text to making English the preferred language, but you are still able to get governmental documents and election ballots in your first language.

What if we did something like Switzerland does and recognize one language as the primary use (English), and also recognize some other main languages (Spanish, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Chinese, Russian) as secondary?

However, regarding public documents, we can only accommodate so many language barriers. There can be someone in the region whose primary language is Ukrainian, but we can't provide ballots and documents in every language known to man; only those that merit such a distinction and are spoken by a vast amount of people.

[LeBron]

I'll be introducing some amendments when I have some more time, but my main concern is I do not like making English the official language of the Midwest. I cannot vote for this bill if that remains in the bill.

Why?

I feel like its unnecessary and xenophobic. I am not a fan of the English first/only movement. I would be in favor of changing the text to making English the preferred language, but you are still able to get governmental documents and election ballots in your first language.

What if we did something like Switzerland does and recognize one language as the primary use (English), and also recognize some other main languages (Spanish, French, German, Italian, Portuguese, Chinese, Russian) as secondary?

However, regarding public documents, we can only accommodate so many language barriers. There can be someone in the region whose primary language is Ukrainian, but we can't provide ballots and documents in every language known to man; only those that merit such a distinction and are spoken by a vast amount of people.

It would still violate Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which prohibits any state or local government from imposing any voting law that results in discrimination against racial or language minorities.

The revised bill still offers free language classes though to any person who needs help with one of the languages the documents or ballots are in. There's close to 7,000 different languages in the world and there's just no way we can serve the language barriers of every single one of them.

[LeBron]

Yeah, I would personally like to keep Part II, Section 3 in, but the amended version is still friendly even without it.

As for your amendment Hash, umm....well, it kind of needs to be all in English? I had to look up some of those words to tell what they even mean. Your bill recognizes Afrikaans (which the "volkseenheid" and other words is the language of), as an official language, but that doesn't matter when these bills are public documents and your amended bill only recognizes English and Spanish for the public document translations.

That would be an unconstitutional bill right there, so I can't call a vote on your amendment, Hashemite. Plus, as Cris said, the bill is a huge takeaway from the original bill and it would be a disservice to revise it to the extent you want it revised.

With that said, I call a 48-hour vote on Cris's amendment. Please vote Aye, Nay, or Abstain.

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[LeBron]

The amendment fails. Hashemite, your amendment is unconstitutional for reasons I already mentioned. The bill needs to be all in English, and if not, there needs to be a translation for every word that isn't in English. That and under Section IV, Part F of the Fourth Midwest Constitution, the MW is technically not supposed to have any official language. Cris's amendment is friendly b/c he has English as the preferred language.

Lastly, I sponsored Windjammer's originally revised bill on his behalf and the Archduke does have the power to determine what gets a vote or not. It's not only unconstitutional, but Windjammer worked a lot of time on this bill and it shouldn't be allowed to make a 360. Since you guys really want a vote on Hash's amendment though, I'll allow it, but I can promise this bill won't be signed if it passes the Althing.

I call a 48-hour vote on Hash's amendment. Vote Aye, Nay or Abstain.

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[LeBron]

^^^

So, the amendment has a 1-1 tie, and in that event, it's the Archduke's responsibility to break the tie. In this case, I'm voting a resounding Nay.

The amendment fails!

[LeBron]

Again.

The Hash's amendment concerns only the change of Part 1 and Part 2? And Part 3? Remains the same or is abolished?

Sorry, I don't understand the question, but Part I is the toxic part of Hash's bill. I don't have any objections to Part II.

Hash, your amendment still isn't friendly. Our regional Constitution clearly states that there cannot be any official languages (unless the Constitution is amended), and you still haven't addressed the concerns of having words in there that aren't English.

You did amend it somewhat though, so I call a 48-hour vote on it. Please vote Aye, Nay or Abstain.

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[LeBron]

I do support the general idea of going back to the Windjammer version of this bill, but Part II, Sec. 7 can't be in there. I would have to veto it if that's in there because it's unconstitutional (it disfranchises legal immigrants from federal elections!)

As for Part IV, Sec. I, the federal government plans to give $1B in aid for combating housing inequalities to each region, so while I do support all of Part IV, we could reduce the spending here of the bill by a nice amount. The other parts of that section look good, just, I don't want to see all of the surplus money established in the last budget rapidly vanish.

GAworth's suggestions I also agree with, so I'll have a slightly altered amendment in a little bit.

[LeBron]

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Any spelling/grammatical errors have been fixed with some added detail on "major languages." The amendment also cuts spending by $2.25B from $4.51 billion to $2.26 billion. We do have a surplus, but IIRC, it's only about $15-16B, so we should save that extra money for the future if we ever really do need it.

[LeBron]

I'm Ok with the Adam's amendment. Only that I don't understand the removal of Point 7 in Part 2.
If the other representatives agree with the Adam's amendment, I can retire my amendment.

I crossed that part out since I feared it would be unconstitutional. Part 2, Clause 7 kept legal immigrants from voting federal elections, which if I were to guess would be challenged by Attorney General Snowstalker otherwise.

As for Part 1, Clause 3, I'm more than willing to strike the detailed languages, but I made sure to include the "but is not limited to" phrase in there just to ensure there would be more languages covered under the clause. Part 2, Clause 5 could be a little bit more specific, and it is one of the initial clauses in the original bill, so maybe slightly alter it by saying "ethnic background or race" instead of nationality?

[LeBron]

I'll withdrawal my amendment, but I would prefer to see Part 2, Clause 1 struck out for previous reasons mentioned.

[LeBron]

Since nobody seems bright enough to get it here: where on earth are the $2.26 billion for your various vaguely defined silly pet projects going to come from? Thin air? The Zimbabwe Central Bank? Assuming it comes from somewhere, who will monitor the use of the money afterward?

It's coming from the last budget surplus where we should be fine as long as our bills for this budget reduce spending while still distributing the regional funds that are necessary too make sure this region stays stable. Helping our struggling schools and students is just one of those many examples.

I'm fine with almost every part of this bill, but I can't sign it unless Part II, Clause 1 is revised.

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[LeBron]

I don't agree with the Governor for two reasons.

1) In the text, legal immigrants have the same rights as Midwesterns, except only the right to vote in the election and the right to be eligible for a period of only 2 years.
If you desire to abolish the part "Except the right to vote in federal elections and the right to be eligible for local and regional offices", you need also abolish Points 2 and 3 of Part 2, because if you want the same complete rights, you can't leave Points 2 and 3, because these points are a negation of the abolishment of "Except the right to vote in federal elections and the right to be eligible for local and regional offices".

2) I think that legal immigrants should wait 2 years to vote and to be eligible.

So, I'm against the Governor's amendment.

Well, I have absolutely no problem with ensuring legal immigrants have the right to vote and run for offices down the road (with the proper regulations, in order of course), but the reason I request that struck phrase be out of the bill is b/c it's contradictory to Points 2 and 3. Part II, Clause 1 of that phrase disenfranchises legal immigrants and forbids them from running for office. Just from how the word "except" is legally defined in the English dictionary, it restricts legal immigrants rights.

In summary, Part II Clause 2 and 3 give the rights of legal immigrants to vote and run for office; Part II Clause 1 restricts that right. That's why I struck out the phrase that I feel is necessary to balance Part II accordingly.

I think we share the same intent on what needs to be done here; just the language used in Clause II Part 1 is very concerning and could face a legal battle.

[LeBron]

Considering Representative Hashemite isn't on board, and I think the Archduke agrees with this proposal, let's wait for a final vote on this until Representative GAworth returns from his LOA.

In the meantime, another bill from the queue could be brought to the floor if the Archduke wishes to.