Illegal immigration initiative falls short

YAKIMA, Wash. -- An anti-illegal-immigration initiative failed to make the election ballot again this year, falling thousands of petition signatures short of the requirement.

Initiative 1043, sponsored by Wendell Hannigan of White Swan, would have required employers to use the federal E-Verify system to check the immigration status of prospective employees.

It also would have required law enforcement to enforce federal immigration laws and barred undocumented immigrants from getting driver's licenses or public benefits.

Respect Washington Chairman Craig Keller, who led signature-gathering efforts, said Thursday afternoon that not all of the signatures had yet been counted. But it was clear
I-1043 would fall short.

To qualify, 241,156 signatures were needed. According to Keller, it's likely Respect Washington gathered fewer than 100,000.

"But I think there's a lot to build on for filing this again next January," he said.

Ricardo Garcia, a former station manager and one of the founders of Granger's Spanish-language Radio KDNA, said he wasn't surprised that the measure failed to draw the requisite support.

"The initiative lacks compassion and it's one that the citizens of our state have consistently rejected for that reason," he said.

An identical measure, Initiative 409, fell short of making the ballot last year. Similar measures failed to make the ballot in 2006 and 2007.

"That's been the history of the anti-immigration initiatives," Garcia said.