Myrick: You're drunk, you're driving, you're illegal, you're deported, period

07:03 PM EDT on Monday, August 15, 2005

By JOHN ROMERO / 6NEWS

6NEWS

Sue Myrick with the family of Scott Gardner.

Congresswoman Sue Myrick unveiled the "Scott Gardner Immigration Act" Monday.

The proposed legislation offers immigration reforms that are more strict, more far reaching than almost anything that had been suggested before --including requiring local cops in Charlotte and across the United States to be immigration police.

Gardner was the Gaston County man killed this summer by a drunk driver. The suspect was in the country illegally.

“You're drunk, you're driving, you're illegal, you're deported, period,” Myrick said.

Myrick’s act would put people like alleged drunk driver, Ramiro Gallegos, an undocumented immigrant with five previous DUI charges into a national FBI database.

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Scott Gardner

“Had Scott Gardner's killer’s convictions been entered into the database perhaps North Carolina judges would have given him jail time, and not a free pass,” Myrick said.

Myrick was also using Gardner's death to call for a new immigration office, court and detention center in Charlotte, but her proposal offered nothing about how to deal with the three quarters of drunken driving arrests by American drivers.

“Yes they shouldn't be doing it either, but they are citizens of this country,” Myrick said.

Myrick also proposed a $10,000 fine for businesses that hire undocumented workers and offered police departments a cash reward for arrests.

Angeles Ortega of the Latin American coalition also wonders whether Gardner's death should spur action on drunk driving -- not immigration.

“It would go out as bounty hunting for heads,” Ortega said. “Drunk drivers are not just Latinos. They come from every race and ethnic group."

Gardner’s family happily lent their name to Myrick's cause.

“If her efforts can keep another family from going through what we've been going through, then we will be with her every step of the way,” a family member said.

Congresswoman Myrick's bill would automatically deport any undocumented immigrant convicted of DUI. She is calling on the governor of North Carolina to make it tougher for illegal immigrants to get driver's licenses -- and is threatening to withhold highway money if he doesn't.