Arkansas Wants its Own Version of Prop 200

• Alien bill about justice, not bias Republican lawmaker says

A couple of Arkansas state senators hope to persuade their fellow legislators to pass an immigration law modeled after Arizona’s Proposition 200, which requires anyone registering to vote to prove citizenship and anyone applying for state services to prove legal residency. It would be designed to ensure that taxpayers aren’t subsidizing illegal aliens, said state Sen. Jim Holt, a Springdale Republican who failed in his bid for a U.S. Senate seat last year. He and Sen. Denny Altes, R-Fort Smith, have spent the past week trying to interest lawmakers in helping to sponsor the proposed legislation. Holt said he’ll probably be the lead sponsor on the bill, which he said should be drafted and filed later this week. He and Altes said in telephone interviews Monday that their proposal is not a response to the idea put forward last week by Gov. Mike Huckabee, a fellow Republican, to allow illegal aliens to become eligible for college financial aid such as state-funded scholarships. But their proposal would prohibit that from happening, they said. Holt said the proposal is about justice, not discrimination. "You don’t want to seem like you hate anyone, but what it is is a matter of justice," he said. "People that are citizens don’t like it if they can’t receive benefits that illegals get." Holt wouldn’t name a specific service that he believes illegal aliens receive that legal residents do not, and he said he wouldn’t immediately name a service that would be affected under the proposal he is drafting. He said he’s still researching the details and that they would be discussed at a news conference that will be held after the bill is filed. "We’re in the beginning stages of this," he said. [more]