Letter to the Editor in the Spirit of Jefferson, Published April 24, 2024
Bill Ridenour, the Republican delegate representing Jefferson County in the 100th District, submitted a piece in the Spirit (April 17, 2024) dealing with what he calls the “illegal alien scourge that is heading for West Virginia.” Ridenour sponsored a House Bill 5031 intended to “prevent illegal alien sanctuary cities in West Virginia.” The bill passed the necessary House committees and went on to the Senate Judiciary Committee, which failed to act on it, So the bill has not become law, but will almost certainly be brought up again in next year’s legislative session.
Ridenour claims that the failure of this bill leaves West Virginia open to “the Biden regime’s insane border policies [which will lead to] illegal aliens flooding into our great state.” He claims that the “far-left Biden regime’s” intent is to “destroy our country via their illegal and unconstitutional border policies.” Fact check here. The Biden administration proposed a bipartisan border policy revamp in a Senate bill that the Republican controlled House refused to consider. This was purportedly because exPresident Trump didn’t want the Democrats to chalk up a win on the issue.
What’s interesting in our completely Republican controlled state government is that Mr. Ridenour is laying the direct blame for the failure of his bill to become law on three Republican–not Democratic–politicians. He criticizes these three individuals for “ensuring West Virginia will eventually be overrun, as are so many other states by illegal aliens.”
Two of these people Ridenour points the finger at represent the Eastern Panhandle: Charles Trump from Morgan County and Craig Blair from Berkeley County. The third is Moore Capito, who resigned his legislative seat to run for governor in this year’s election. Capito is the son of Shelley Moore Capito, one of our U.S. Senators. Blair is the current WV Senate president and Trump is running for the state Supreme Court. It’s probably fair to say that all three have a more comprehensive view of the state’s needs than does Ridenour.
So I’m going to take a leap here and speculate that these three Republican politicians, who Ridenour claims waylaid his bill, actually knew what they were doing. They might legitimately feel that a bill targeting immigrants wasn’t needed. West Virginia is not Texas. It’s not on the Mexican border or the Canadian border and it’s landlocked. And it’s poor in comparison to all of its neighboring states. What is the attraction here for undocumented immigrants? And yet, Governor Justice in 2023 spent $600,000 of taxpayer money to send 50 National Guard troops to the Texas border, based on the false premise that asylum seekers are bringing fentanyl into West Virginia. A West Virginia Watch article from August 2023 wonders if this was a half million dollar political stunt. It looks like it was.
But the accusations aside, is it the case that West Virginia already has an undocumented immigrant problem? Is the Ridenour bill actually addressing a real problem? The evidence says no. First of all, as we’re likely all aware, the state as a whole is losing population, more so than any other state. And the people that are being lost are mostly young people, including university educated people. We lost so many people between the two last national censuses that we also lost one of our three U.S. representatives. So we need more people. Immigrants are people.
Another fact is that West Virginia ranks in the lowest five states in the number of residents who are foreign born. There are approximately 30,000 people in that category. About half of these individuals are naturalized citizens. Of the remainder, fewer than 5,000 are undocumented immigrants. That is approximately 0.2 percent of the state’s population. But are these 5,000 people freeloading? Probably not, especially since state benefits are restricted to citizens and validated permanent residents. Overall, though, immigrants of all types in 2018 contributed $176 million in Federal taxes and $83 million in state taxes. This data comes from American Immigration Council reports from 2020. The AIC compiles its statistics from U.S. Census data and from its own research,
Finally, the West Virginia Center on Budget & Policy in a report on immigrants published in 2020 listed as a key finding: Immigrants [of all types] account for less than 2 percent of West Virginia’s population, but growth in the state’s immigrant population has helped slow the state’s population loss.
So here’s the reality: undocumented immigrants can be a plus, and not just here in West Virginia, but across the country, They are not a scourge. They are not invaders. They are not destroyers. They are not drug dealers. They’re looking for jobs and for a safe place to live. And if they’re undocumented, in West Virginia they’re paying taxes and getting no benefits.
By being immigrant unfriendly Ridenour and the delegates who voted to pass his bill are sending a wider message that West Virginia does not trust immigrants of any kind. Bunching them all in the class of “aliens” does not send a welcoming message.