SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (Dakota News Now) – The South Dakota Municipal League wrapped up its annual conference with another forum, where speakers warned about IM-28.

Opponents denounced the measure, saying that the ballot measure is written very poorly and that if judicial review is what’s being relied on, then that would be chaos for the state of South Dakota.

In his statement to Secretary of State Monae Johnson, Attorney General Marty Jackley said judicial or legislative clarification of the measure will be necessary.

Senator Tim Reed said the confusion of the measure’s language needed review like they have in the legislature.

“Those committee meetings are where we really work through and look for those unintended consequences and we make sure the wording is correct in a bill, and so this bill here does not have correct wording, and it would’ve failed in the legislature,” Reed said.

Those who spoke are also worried about their relationship with the Department of Revenue when it will no longer be able to collect and administer the sales taxes on the cities’ behalf

“So, cities, even if they can collect these taxes that portion of the law will go away, and we’ll be left to fend for ourselves on how we administer sales tax or perhaps contract with the Department of Revenue, and this will make a substantial negative impact on city budgets and our finance offices,” Sam Nelson, General Counsel for the South Dakota Municipal League said.

On the ballot, the fiscal note will say that this measure will cost the state $123.9 million, but opponents said at the very least it will cost $133 million and could be up to over $600 million depending on what items end up falling under the consumable items umbrella.

They said any cost will hurt cities in the state and that it’s important citizens think about their tax burden.

“If you’re not interested in an income tax, and you’re not interested in higher property taxes, where are the funds going to come from in order to do the normal basic operations of both state and municipal government,” Nathan Sanderson said.

According to WalletHub, South Dakota is 44th in the country in total tax burden at 6.44%.

Harrisburg Mayor Derick Wenck said that he’s concerned that if this passes, his city will not be able to pave roads and that citizens will continue to have to park on the same muddy gravel roads that they have before.

Copyright 2024 Dakota News Now. All rights reserved.

VERMILLION, S.D. (Dakota News Now) -It’s D-Days this weekend when the University of South Dakota hosts Northern Iowa in Vermillion.

Bob Nielson’s Coyotes are coming off back to back thrashings of Missouri Valley opponents, most recently at Murray State when they won 59-0 after a quick start for the 2nd straight game.

Then they just ran the ball down the Racers throats for the rest of the game in another very impressive performance.

USD Football Coach Bob Nielson says, “Played really well early on. Opening drive for a touchdown, got the ball right back and another nice drive for a touchdown and generated a turnover and a short field and the next thing you know we’re ahead 21-0 and we really felt that we played the way we needed to play after that.”

The Coyotes are ranked 4th in the FCS polls. They host Northern Iowa Saturday at 2:00 for Dakota Days and the #1 Jacks host Youngstown State at the same time at Hobo Days in Brookings.

Copyright 2024 Dakota News Now. All rights reserved.

WASHINGTON — Immigration remains at the forefront of the 2024 presidential election, with both candidates taking a tougher stance than in the past on the flow of migrants into the United States.

GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump has made immigration a core campaign issue, as he did in his two previous bids for the White House, and has expanded his attacks this time around to include false claims about migrants with legal status in specific locations like Springfield, Ohio.

He’s often demonized immigrants in speeches and at rallies, and has vowed to enact the mass deportation of millions of people living in the United States without authorization.

Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris, like the Biden administration, has shifted to the right on immigration, embracing limits to asylum and advocating for added border security, as migrant encounters hit a record high at the end of 2023. With those new policies in place, migrant encounters have sharply fallen this year.

Vice President Harris in her remarks on immigration has mainly stuck to her promise to sign into law a bipartisan border security deal that three senators struck earlier this year. That legislation, if enacted, would have been the most drastic change in U.S. immigration law in decades.

The deal never made it out of the Senate. Once Trump expressed his displeasure with the bill, House Republicans pulled their support, and the GOP in the upper chamber followed suit.

Harris has not detailed her positions on immigration beyond her support of the border security bill.

Regardless of who wins the White House, the incoming administration will be tasked with the fate of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which protects a little over half a million undocumented people brought into the United States as children without authorization. A Texas legal challenge threatens the legality of the program, and the case could make its way up to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Additionally, work visas, massive backlogs in U.S. immigration courts and renewing those individuals in Temporary Protected Status, or TPS, will fall to the next administration. Neither candidate has laid out how they would handle those issues.

The Trump campaign did not respond to States Newsroom’s request for comment.

The Harris campaign pointed to the vice president’s remarks from an Arizona campaign rally where she acknowledged the U.S. has a broken immigration system and put her support behind border security and legal pathways to citizenship.

Harris also took a September trip to the southern border. 

Promise: border security deal

Harris has made the bipartisan border deal a centerpiece of her campaign. She’s often promised to sign it into law and has used the proposal to criticize Trump.

“We can create an earned pathway to citizenship and secure our border,” Harris said during the Democratic National Convention in August.

Foreign policy: Where do Harris and Trump stand?

The bill negotiated by senators would need to reach the 60-vote threshold to advance through the chamber. But after Trump came out against it and it was brought to the floor, the Republican who handled negotiations with Democrats and the White House, Oklahoma’s James Lankford, voted against his own bill.

Additionally, House Democrats in the Congressional Hispanic Caucus and immigration groups were not supportive of the bill.

“I will bring back the bipartisan border security bill that he killed, and I will sign it into law,” Harris said at the DNC.

The measure raises the bar for asylum, and would require asylum seekers to provide greater proof of their fear of persecution.

The bill would have also provided $20 billion for the hiring of more than 4,000 asylum officers, legal counsel for unaccompanied minors and the purchase of drug screening technology at ports of entry. It would also have provided $8 billion for detention facilities to add 50,000 detention beds.

The plan did include some legal pathways to citizenship for Afghans who aided the U.S. and fled in 2021 after the U.S. withdrew from the country. It also provided up to 10,000 special visas for family members of those Afghan allies.

It also would have added 250,000 green-card employee and family-based visas over the next five years.

Promise: mass deportations

“Send them back,” is chanted at Trump’s rallies, where he often promises to carry out mass deportations.

There are roughly 11 million people in the U.S. without legal authorization.

“We’re going to have the largest deportation,” Trump said at a June campaign rally in Racine, Wisconsin. “We have no choice.”

Under Trump’s vision, mass deportation would be a broad, multipronged effort that includes invoking an 18th-century law; reshuffling law enforcement at federal agencies; transferring funds within programs in the Department of Homeland Security; and forcing greater enforcement of immigration laws.

Promise: an end to birthright citizenship

In a May 2023 campaign video, Trump said if he wins the White House, one of his first moves would be to issue an executive order ending birthright citizenship, which means anyone born in the U.S., regardless of their parents’ status, is an American citizen.

This is enshrined in the 14th Amendment of the Constitution and would likely face legal challenges.

“As part of my plan to secure the border, on Day One of my new term in office, I will sign an executive order making clear to federal agencies that under the correct interpretation of the law, going forward, the future children of illegal aliens will not receive automatic U.S. citizenship,” Trump said.

Promise: deportation of pro-Palestinian students on visas

Across the country, students on college campuses during the past year have set up encampments and protests calling for a cease-fire in Gaza and an end to the Israel-Hamas war.

In the initial attack on Oct. 7, 2023, more than 1,200 people were killed in Israel and hundreds taken hostage. As the war has continued, researchers estimate that as many as 186,000 Palestinians have been killed, directly and indirectly.

At a private dinner in May, Trump told donors that “any student that protests, I throw them out of the country,” according to the Washington Post.

“You know, there are a lot of foreign students,” Trump said. “As soon as they hear that, they’re going to behave.”

Trump also made that vow during a campaign rally in October 2023 in Las Vegas, Nevada.

“We’ll terminate the visas of all of Hamas’ sympathizers, and we’ll get them off our college campuses, out of our cities and get them the hell out of our country, if that’s OK with you,” he said.

The Republican party made it part of its party platform in July. 

Promise: an end to parole programs

With immigration reform stalled in Congress, one way the Biden administration has handled mass migration is the use of humanitarian parole programs. Those humanitarian parole programs have been used for Ukrainians fleeing the war with Russia, Afghans fleeing after the U.S. withdrawal and for Cubans, Haitians and Nicaraguans.

More than 1 million people have been paroled into the U.S. under the executive authority extended by the Biden administration.

Trump said in a November 2023 campaign video  he would end this policy on his first day in office.

“I will stop the outrageous abuse of parole authority,” Trump said.

Promise: green cards for foreign students

In a June podcast interview, Trump said that he was supportive of giving green cards to foreign students if they graduate from a U.S. college.

“What I will do is, if you graduate from a college, I think you should get, automatically as part of your diploma, a green card to be able to stay in this country,” Trump said. “That includes junior colleges, too.”

This would be done through rulemaking from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.

On the podcast, Trump also said he would extend H-1B visas for tech workers. Those visas allow employers to hire foreign workers for specialized occupations, usually for a high skill role.

Promise: more screenings of immigrants

On social media, the Trump campaign said it would put in place an “ideological screening” for all immigrants and bar those who have sympathies toward Hamas.

Promise: Trump-era immigration policies 

Trump has stated in various campaign speeches that he plans to reinstate his immigration policies from his first term.

That would include the continuation of building a wall along the southern border; reissuing a travel ban on individuals from predominantly Muslim countries; suspending travel of refugees; reinstating a public health policy that barred migrants from claiming asylum amid the coronavirus pandemic; and reinstating the remain in Mexico policy that required asylum seekers to remain in Mexico while awaiting their cases.