After weeks of pressure from challengers running for a council seat in April’s election and residents who have filled City Hall at recent meetings, the city of Santa Clarita took a symbolic stand opposing illegal immigration.

Council members voted at Tuesday’s Council meeting to endorse seven pieces of federal legislation, sponsored by Congressman Howard “Buck” McKeon, that could increase penalties for people crossing the U.S. border illegally and add 350 miles of fence along the U.S.-Mexico border, among other things.

“This is an opportunity to send a message to Congress that we think there is a problem (with illegal immigration),” Mayor Laurene Weste said at the meeting. “This is a complex problem that no one bill will solve.”

Weste brought the measures before the council for a vote.

Several people spoke both for and against the legislation — with speakers on opposite ends of the debate drawing applause from different groups of people sitting on either side of the City Council Chambers.

Weste said she hoped that a reasonable dialogue on illegal immigration, that cut through rhetoric on both sides, could be started by council members voting to support the legislation.

The council split the proposed legislation into two groups after Councilwoman Laurie Ender voiced her concern about two bills that attempt to prevent the children of illegal immigrants born in the United States from being granted U.S. citizenship.   

She said she was “clearly bothered” by any bill that attempted to strip a child’s citizenship, and voted against both bills that dealt with the children of illegal immigrants.

Christian Ramorino, 37, an immigration attorney from Canyon Country, said several of the laws the council was endorsing were probably unconstitutional.

“The laws as proposed that you are talking about will either require amending the Constitution or are unconstitutional,” Ramorino said.
Ramorino said the City Council would be better served focusing on different issues.

Weste, who acknowledged that it was likely none of the legislation would pass Congress as currently written, said the substance of the legislation wasn’t as important as what the symbolic act represents.

“A lot of what I heard on both sides is correct,” Weste said. “The important thing is to get a dialogue (on illegal immigration) started.”