South Dakota

Pierre is another sleepy state capital about to plunge head first into the churning waters of national immigration policy.

The South Dakota legislature will soon be considering three new proposed restrictionist immigration laws:

(1) An Arizona-style immigration law that will allow law enforcement officers to check the immigration status of anyone who they believe might be an illegal alien in South Dakota.

The bill would also make it illegal for anyone to transport or conceal an illegal alien or encourage illegal aliens to move to South Dakota.

(2) A birthright citizenship law which would challenge granting U.S. citizenship to anchor babies. This is the “state compact” which is the brainchild of Kris Kobach and State Legislators for Legal Immigration.

(3) A bill that would penalize anyone who “knowingly employs, transports or conceals” an illegal alien in South Dakota.

You know the drill by now.

Republicans are sponsoring all three bills. Democrats are generally opposed to the new laws.

The ACLU plans to file lawsuits. The business community and human rights organizations are complaining about racial profiling and the economic costs of enforcement.

68 percent of voters in South Dakota support the passage of an Arizona-style immigration law. 61 percent of South Dakotans oppose the Justice Department lawsuit against Arizona.

This is the same story that we see everywhere. It doesn’t matter whether it is South Dakota, Indiana, or Mississippi.

A Familiar Pattern

There are several inconvenient truths on display here:

(1) The mainstream media is unanimously opposed to restrictionist immigration reform in South Dakota. The public is broadly supportive of Arizona and copycat laws.

Ordinary people are not lemmings who mindlessly repeat whatever they read in the newspapers. They are capable of weighing the evidence and making their own decisions.

(2) Conservatives are overwhelmingly supportive of Arizona-style immigration reform. Progressives are overwhelmingly opposed to it.

In the White Nationalist community, there is a popular legend that there are no real substantial differences between Left and Right. This is demonstrably false.

(3) Republicans who represent conservative districts are almost always the ones who file new restrictionist immigration laws in the state legislatures. Democrats generally vote against our interests on immigration.

I’ve looked at over half the states in the Union. Over the past five months, I have repeatedly shown that immigration is now a partisan issue.

(4) Populist conservatives are carrying all the water on the immigration front.

Far from being worthless, conservatives are the only constituency in America that ever does anything about immigration.

(5) There is a strong positive correlation between the racial and ideological composition of a state and its support for restrictionist immigration reform.

If a state has a strong conservative majority and a Republican dominated state government, it tends to be more inclined to pass restrictionist immigration laws.

(6) The strength of the business community at the state level plays an important role in determining whether or not restrictionist immigration laws get passed.

The business community is especially strong in Western states like Wyoming, Idaho, and Kansas. The pro-business wing of the Republican Party is the enemy.

It makes no sense to reject Republicans like Nathan Deal and Russell Pearce on account of Sam Brownback and Lindsey Graham. The sensible course of action is to replace pro-business Republicans with populist conservative candidates through the primary process.

If we respond to our predicament intelligently, we can change the composition of Congress and the state legislatures over time.

Partisan Composition

South Dakota is a Republican leaning state.

The state has a Republican governor. Republicans control the South Dakota House and Senate by large majorities.

In the 2010 midterm elections, Democrats didn’t even bother to contest Sen. John Thune’s reelection. South Dakota voters threw out Rep. Stephanie Herseth Sandlin, a Blue Dog Democrat, and replaced her with Kristi Noem, the Republican challenger.

Herseth Sandlin retaliated against South Dakotans by voting for the DREAM Act in December. Sen. John Thune voted against the DREAM Act.

Sen. Tim Johnson, a Democrat, is “a solid supporter” of the DREAM Act and proudly voted for it in December. He is up for reelection in 2014.

We have a good shot at winning a victory in South Dakota. A possibility remains though that pro-business Republicans could kill any of these three bills in committee.

That is what happened in Wyoming. We can’t afford to let that familiar scenario to unfold again. The arm twisting process must start as soon as possible.

Final Thought

These small states are showing a lot of promise.

South Dakota and its neighbors are showing a willingness to challenge the government on healthcare, gun rights, and immigration policy. Maybe bolder actions are coming down the road?

Looking into the near future, I can’t wait to see if these White, rural, fiscally conservative states in the Heartland – which want to decrease the size of the federal government – are willing to indefinitely come to the rescue of non-White, big spending, bankrupt states like California and Illinois – which favor expanding the scope of the federal government.

I don’t expect this marriage to last indefinitely. Couples have parted ways for far less serious causes than those which tie South Dakota to Washington.