by Omar Jimenez and Rachel Clarke on CNN.com
A bill before the Missouri State Senate would introduce $1,000 rewards for people identifying undocumented immigrants who are then taken into custody.
The proposal would make it a state felony for anyone in the US illegally to enter and stay in Missouri. It would create an opportunity for licensed bond agents to become bounty hunters. And it would create a fund not just for the bounty hunters, but anyone who provides information on an undocumented individual that results in their arrest.
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Senate Bill 72 is still in committee and may never become law. But opponents say it’s already spreading fear and changing the lives of both legally residing and undocumented immigrants.
Gregory emphasized people would only be approached and detained after an investigation finds evidence against them and a warrant is issued by a judge.
“These concerns we’re hearing that bounty hunters are just going to be kicking in doors, that’s illegal. It’s illegal now, it’s illegal under my bill,” Gregory told CNN.
“When I’m hearing other types of harassment concerns or things like normal, everyday citizens walking up and saying, ‘hey, you show me your papers,’ — that’s illegal. That’s illegal today. And it’s illegal under my bill,” he said.
That being said, it could be surprising that the lone voice from a member of the public supporting Gregory’s bill in committee came from Rabbi Ze’ev Smason.
Smason, a rabbi in St Louis for 25 years, rejected the comparisons to the Holocaust.
“What exactly were they doing in Nazi Germany? They were turning in neighbors if they had a 16th of Jewish blood within them and then they took them in cattle cars and they exterminated them. That’s what was done in Nazi Germany. Is that what’s being done over here?” he asked.
“I see no reasonable comparison between the two,” he added.
He told CNN it was a matter of justice. “I think people, even though we’re not a border state, are very concerned about illegal immigration … because it’s an abrogation of the law and, in general, a spirit of lawlessness is something that’s destructive to our community and our country,” he said.
Mistakes could be made, he conceded, but he trusted in the judicial system. “I’d like to think that most of the time our police and our courts get it right,” he said.
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Photo credit: Holocaust Remembrance Day Candle by Slgckgc, with CC BY 2.0 license on Flickr