Isn’t it amusing how the anti-immigration crowd backs off anything which could prove to everyone what they are really about?

During budget talks last year a study was proposed to take a very detailed look at what immigratiion means to the state.   However, this past week, the Republicans anti-immigration crowd decided that that study wasn’t in the best interest of the state.

The committee that oversees the work of the Kansas Legislative Division of Post Audit decided that the report wouldn’t produce useful enough information to warrant the effort.

Instead, the panel, on a 5-3 vote, ordered the division’s researchers to prepare a summary of existing studies on the costs and revenues produced by illegal immigration in Kansas and elsewhere, as well as its impact on worker wages.

“I don’t think we need to waste the post audit’s time pursuing something that’s going to be inaccurate at best and incomplete,” said Rep. John Grange, R-El Dorado.

So let’s get this straight, they believe a new study will be “inaccurate at best and incomplete”, however, putting together a bunch of old studies is going to in some way be different?

Why are they really doing this?

Rep. Nile Dillmore, D-Wichita, said that some lawmakers are worried that having the hard facts might take the bite out of illegal immigration as a political issue.

He also said there are fears that the study might show that illegal immigrants don’t cost the state nearly as much as some believe.

“It’s really hard to talk about the issue from a reasoned standpoint, and that was really the whole point of asking for this whole study,” Dillmore said.

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