By
NICK GOSNELL
Hutch Post
HUTCHINSON — Kansas Attorney General Derek Schmidt introduced legislation in the Kansas House this week to create a state law blocking local municipal governments from adopting rules against cooperation with federal law enforcement investigating illegal immigrants.
This is in response to action by the Unified Government of Wyandotte County earlier this month that would have chilled any police response. Schmidt spoke to Hutch Post earlier this month about the issue after the local action and before the bill introduction.
"It doesn't entirely bar [cooperation]," Schmidt said. "They put a lot of wiggle words in there. It really does impede, restrict, it's clearly designed to tell the local police, you're not supposed to working with federal immigration authorities."
Another potential pitfall of the Wyandotte County action is creating photo identification for undocumented residents. The reason this could be a problem is because of the way some state statutes are worded.
"There are lots of things that you have to have government identification for under state law," Schmidt said. "We presuppose that if you have that government identification, it proves you're a citizen."
House Bill 2717 would attempt to address that issue by making clear that any local ID is not valid for State ID purposes. The bill has been referred to the House Federal and State Affairs committee.