Jon Tester (D-MT) is facing a tough run for re-election to the U.S. Senate, but he just keeps giving progressives more reasons not to vote for him. His track record on immigration issues has been abysmal, as I've written about before. Make no mistake about it -- Tester is probably the worst Democrat in the Senate on the issue of immigration, and he is one of the most vocal. The way he talks about the issue, you would think Montana wasn't one of the states with the least number of immigrants in the whole country.

The term "anchor babies" is one of the most offensive and pejorative terms being thrown around when talking about immigrants. It is based on the false belief that when an immigrant has a baby in the United States, that prevents the child's parents from being removed and gives them some form of immigration status. That is not true. In actuality, a child can only confer immigration status to his or her parent when the child reaches age 21. Every years, tens of thousands of parents of U.S. citizen are deported -- amounting to over 100,000 deportations over the last ten years.

Rep. James Knox, a Republican, has introduced a bill hat purports to "reinterpret" the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution and strip citizenship from certain children of immigrants and dual citizens. The hearing on this unconstitutional and bigoted bill was heated. Only one person spoke in support of the bill, with a dozen opponents -- including me -- speaking against it.

The anti-immigrant bills continue to be introduced in the Montana Legislature. Rep. Janna Taylor (a Republican) introduced a mean-spirited and pointless bill that would restrict driver's license tests to English only. This bill won’t save any money, time or resources. This bill succeeds in only one thing — marginalizing non-English speakers.

I previously posted a video of the proponent testimony in favor of HB 274, a bill that would encourage Montanans to report their neighbors to the authorities on suspicion that they are not authorized for employment. In their testimony, the proponents clearly demonstrated the risk that racial profiling and xenophobia would result in baseless complaints. I have now compiled a video of our opposition testimony.

Some of the testimony that came out at yesterday's hearing on HB 274 must be seen to be believed.  These anti-immigrant bills don't reflect Montana's values, and its important for Montanans to know what is happening at the legislature.  Watch the video below, and share this link with your friends.

Yesterday, Rep. Gordon Vance proposed HB 71, a bill that would prevent certain immigrants from being able to collect worker's compensation benefits if they are injured on the job. As discussed below, this bill threatens the safety of all workers in Montana. I testified against this bill, along with the Montana Human Rights Network and the ACLU, among others

I recently discovered a letter to the editor in the Bozeman Daily Chronicle, which directly asks me the question: "What part of 'illegal' don't people understand?" Here is my response.