State lawmakers around the country are proposing hundreds of bills this year aimed at curbing illegal immigration, but experts say the cost and public opposition will keep many from becoming law.

Lawmakers in at least eight states are now sponsoring legislation similar to Oklahoma, which last May passed the nation's most comprehensive anti-immigration law.

It restricts illegal immigrants' access to driver's licenses and other IDs, limits public benefits, penalizes employers who hire them and boosts ties between local police and federal immigration authorities.

(Article continues below)

The bills are among more than 350 immigration-related proposals unveiled in state legislatures in the first two months of this year, according to a count by The Associated Press.

Sharma Hammond, staff attorney for the legal arm of the Federation for American Immigration Reform, believes states have been galvanized by the collapse two years running of a congressional solution.

Full article here.