[NYTr] Arizona Is Split Over Hard Line on Immigrants

[All the News That Doesn't Fit]

sent by Milt Shapiro (mexnews)

The New York Times - Dec 14, 2007

Arizona Is Split Over Hard Line on Immigrants

By Randal C. Archibold

Phoenix - A new Arizona law against employing illegal immigrants has 
shaken businesses, scared workers, delighted advocates of stricter 
immigration controls and added to tensions in a state split over who 
belongs here and who does not.

And that is even before the law's scheduled effective date, Jan. 1.

State officials are seeking to curb illegal immigration by choking 
the supply of jobs with the law, which threatens to pull the business 
license of any employer that knowingly hires an illegal immigrant.

It is an example of the scores of state and municipal laws meant to 
address illegal immigration on the belief that the federal government 
has not done enough to thwart it. But the Arizona version is among 
the toughest and could test states' ability to crack down on the 
countless businesses that have relied on illegal workers.

Arizona makes for a striking laboratory. Its estimated population of 
500,000 illegal immigrants is among the highest and fastest growing 
in the country, and illegal workers make up an estimated 9 percent to 
12 percent of the work force, mostly in low-skill jobs in the 
service, construction and landscaping industries, according to 
research at Arizona State University.

Legal challenges to the law, signed in July by Gov. Janet Napolitano, 
a Democrat, were filed by business and immigrant rights groups, 
asserting that the law would usurp federal authority, lead to ethnic 
profiling and hinge on sometimes inaccurate government records. A 
federal judge on Tuesday will consider a temporary restraining order 
blocking the law from going into effect; the judge rejected another 
challenge last week.

Businesses and immigration groups say they have already tallied some 
of the effects of the law.

Advocates for immigrants contend that, at a minimum, hundreds of 
people unauthorized to work have left the state or been fired. Some 
school districts have at least partly attributed enrollment drops to 
the law. Though the housing slump and seasonal economic factors make 
it difficult to pin down how much is attributable to the new law, 
illegal workers say employers are checking papers and are less 
inclined to hire them.

"They started asking everybody for papers one day, and those like me 
that didn't have them were fired," said Luis Baltazar, a Mexican 
immigrant who worked for a paving company until a few weeks ago and 
was soliciting work at a day labor hiring hall here.

Another immigrant, Jose Segovia, said work had plummeted in the past 
few weeks, more so than in the four previous Decembers he spent in 
Phoenix. "Some of my friends went back to Mexico," Mr. Segovia said, 
"and I am thinking of going, too, if it doesn't get better here."

Michael Francis, who grows several crops near here, said that he 
requested and kept documentation that his 150 employees were eligible 
to work, but that some had left and he was having difficulty filling 
the jobs. "The people from the office buildings in Phoenix are not 
going to swarm the countryside to clip onions," Mr. Francis said. 
"There are just not a lot of people knocking on the door to do this 
kind of work."

Groups representing the state's 150,000 licensed businesses say the 
wording of the law is vague and has led to confusion over whether it 
applies to all employees or only those hired after Jan. 1. The bill's 
sponsor, Representative Russell Pearce, Republican of Mesa, told The 
Associated Press on Thursday that the law applied to all employees, 
not just new hires.

As a result of the confusion, employers have scrambled to compile and 
check paperwork, and a cottage industry of law forums and consulting 
is emerging.

"The legal costs of being investigated and prosecuted based on claims 
with little or no merit could be substantial," said Glenn Hamer, the 
president of the state Chamber of Commerce, one of the groups suing 
to block the law. "This could lead to fishing expeditions and will 
burden county attorneys from other priorities like investigating 
murder, rape, child molestation."

Arizona's law stands out.

The law calls for suspending a business license for at least 10 days 
on the first offense and revoking it for a second one, effectively 
shutting down the business. Several states call for pulling a 
business license after the federal government has determined that an 
employer hired illegal workers, but Arizona's law empowers the state 
to act alone.

Although it is already a federal offense to hire illegal workers, the 
law's authors contend that more illegal workers will be found because 
it requires the state's 15 county attorneys to investigate any 
complaint they deem not frivolous.

"That's the problem," said Julie A. Pace, a lawyer representing 
business and advocate groups opposed to the law. "This is the federal 
government's authority, not the state's."

But backers of the law say the state's power to grant business 
licenses includes the authority to set the criteria for them.

The county attorneys have not taken a position on the law as a group, 
but they have worked toward developing a uniform process to file and 
weigh complaints.

Ms. Napolitano called the law flawed, but signed it anyway, saying it 
was better than risking a possible ballot measure that could be "even 
more draconian" and difficult to overturn. "It was left up to Arizona 
because the federal government has failed to act," she said.

Ms. Napolitano signed the legislation a few days after a 
Congressional effort to revamp immigration laws failed, with one of 
its key sponsors, Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona, a 
presidential candidate, predicting a confusing hodgepodge of state 
laws. Mr. McCain's campaign did not respond to a request for comment 
on the state law Thursday night.

Jim Weiers, a Republican and the speaker of the Arizona House, said 
an ad hoc group was preparing recommendations on what if any changes 
to make to the law. But Mr. Weiers stood by it, suggesting that if 
the anecdotal reports of its early impact were true, so much the 
better.

"If all this is happening then the law, before it has taken effect, 
is working," he said. "The whole idea was to make sure we are not 
going to be a place people come to illegally to start a better life."

Some businesses contend that the difficulties of verifying legal 
employment have been exaggerated and that the law will eventually 
improve competition in the marketplace if cheap, foreign labor is cut.

"We are out competing against businesses using illegal labor and not 
registered as contractors," said Gary Hudder, an asphalt paving 
contractor who is president of the Yavapai County Contractors 
Association in Prescott, which, in contrast to the state contractors 
association, supports the law. "This will level the playing field," 
Mr. Hudder said.

Still, economists say the law could damage the economy.

"If you take 12 percent of the work force away, that is going to be a 
problem," said Dawn McLaren, an economist at Arizona State 
University, adding that people not currently working could never make 
up the difference. "The largest group to join the work force was 
during World War II, and that was a big motivator. I don't think 
patriotism is going to drive this one."

Some business owners said they worried that they would unfairly be 
singled out by disgruntled employees or people who assume many 
Spanish-speaking workers are illegal.

"We have had U.S. citizens give us false documents because law 
enforcement was against them for whatever reason," said Saul Perez, 
who manages a construction company here. "This is not necessarily 
going to catch as many undocumented workers as people believe."

All of the state's businesses will be required to use the Department 
of Homeland Security's E-Verify system, a pilot program that 
electronically checks Social Security and other records to confirm 
legal employment status. An outside auditor for the department warned 
this year that naturalized citizens were more likely to be 
incorrectly flagged as unauthorized to work than American-born 
workers, but a department spokeswoman said that the overall error 
rate was "extremely low" and that improvements were continuing.

Illinois, which had adopted a law barring use of E-Verify over 
accuracy concerns, agreed Thursday not to enforce it until a lawsuit 
filed by the Homeland Security Department was resolved. The state 
said it would consider amending the law to address the federal 
government's concerns.