Arizona takes immigration enforcement into its own hands again
Update: La Shawn Barber writes in today’s Washington Examiner–“Now that amnesty is dead, locals must act against employers.”
Beginning in January, employers in Arizona could face having their business licenses suspended or revoked if they get caught hiring illegal immigrants.
A new law signed Monday by Gov. Janet Napolitano created the state crime of hiring illegal immigrants and requires all businesses to verify the employment eligibility of workers through a federal database.
It’s intended to remove the economic incentive for immigrants to sneak across the border and help lessen Arizona’s role as the busiest illegal gateway into the nation.
The Democratic governor said she signed the bill because the federal government has failed to overhaul the country’s broken immigration policies, though she believes the new law contains flaws that should be fixed.“I signed it, too, out of the realization that the flow of illegal immigration into our state is due to the constant demand of some employers for cheap, undocumented labor,” Napolitano wrote in a letter to lawmakers…
…Republican Rep. Russell Pearce of Mesa, who proposed the new law, said it will provide the state with huge savings because Arizona will have to pay fewer health care and education costs for illegal immigrants and their families.
“If there are no jobs, they will go home,” Pearce said.Employers who knowingly hire illegal immigrants could face a business license suspension lasting up to 10 days. They also would face a three-year probationary period during which they would be required to report new hires to prosecutors.
Businesses that take steps to get around the ban would have gotten a mandatory 10-day license suspension and five years of probation.
Second-time violators would have their business licenses revoked permanently.
The proposal would give a measure of legal protection to employers who can prove they have verified the eligibility of workers through a federal records database.
Pearce was also a driving force behind the successful Proposition 200 in Arizona, which banned social services for illegal aliens and required proof of citizenship at the voting booth. What the feds are failing to do, cities and states are stepping in to do. It’s a damning indictment of Washington, isn’t it?
***
Mulling over the political gamesmanship, AllahPundit asks: “Should we read any trends into the fact that Napolitano, a Democrat, feels obliged to crack down here on immigration or is this just another fluke from the state that put two Republicans in the Senate only to have them take the lead on shamnesty?”
My own two cents: The move shows the growing influence of Pearce and the immigration enforcement wing of the AZ GOP. If, as Bryan Preston says, the AZ GOP is a national microcosm of the national GOP, this is a good trend.
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Categories: Employer Sanctions
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You are absolutely right and it’s happening on the right and on the left. San Fransisco has started their initiative for Universal Health Care. Let’s see if it works.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2007/07/03/HEALTH.TMP&type=printable
What are the chances that Washington takes notice of any initiatives that cities/states take up that work well for its citizens?
A nice step and completely logical law. More of this needs to be passed especially among border states.
Discussion over on HA from AZ residents is that the law was passed with the hopes that the enforcement would cripple the AZ economy, causing everyone to see what a mistake it would be on a national scale to crack down on illegals. Other AZ residents insisted that they don’t expect the laws to be enforced (much like Prop 200 isn’t regularly enforced).
I guess we will just have to wait and see where this goes.
Doing the work the Feds just won’t do. Thank you, Rep. Pearce. I hope my fellow Texans step up to the plate soon as well. The People are going to have to fix this mess. DC politicians are too busy just trying to get along…or not.
I was hoping you would post this Michelle . Some small towns already tried this and the law suits came pouring in . Now that a Border state is taking matters into their own hands we will get the momentum we need to defeat the corruption in DC .
The states next to Arizona may be forced into passing the same laws because of the number of illegals leaving . They are not going to go south.
Finally some people in power stepping up.
Since the federal government is involved in everything outside its Constitutional mandates, it is time to take some of that shamnesty energy and apply it to the local politicians.
All politics is local.
Yes, but in more liberal counties, like Fairfax and Arlington counties, VA, in the Washington area, there is no local enforcement. Police are instructed not to ask the immigration status of criminals. We are paying sky high property taxes to educate the children of these illegals in expensive ESL classes and for the county to provide “affordable housing.” The illegals will just move from Arizona to other places in the U.S. that have lax enforcement of the law.
The feds are the ones who should be enforcing immigration, and they are not. But it is a good sign that some states and local governments are taking control of enforcing the law.
You don’t have to round anyone up and deport them. If you take away their ability to get jobs, most of the 12 million illegals will be forced to leave on their own. No job means no money for food, shelter, or to send back to Mexico. Its not a difficult task. Poison the well by making it detrimental to employers to hire an illegal. Simple!
No Mas Trevajo, Pepe
“I signed it, too, out of the realization that the flow of illegal immigration into our state is due to the constant demand of some employers for cheap, undocumented labor,”
This probably gets her in trouble with the Chamber of Commerce but it is the key to enforcement, in my opinion.
What good does it do to round up millions of people if the incentive for them to come still exists? This way, illegals will be forced to starve or go home - if the law is enforced to the limit. And I love the idea of making a second offense a permanent revocation of the busienss license. No “three strikes” nonsense.
That federal database is the most under utilized resource in the country. I think I read where less than 2% of businesses use it - even though it’s designed for much larger traffic loads. Not only will you confirm who’s here legally or not, you will also make a huge dent in the Green Card and SS card counterfeiting trade - that’s a two billion dollar a year industry.
All in all, bully for Arizona and Gov. Janet Napolitano!
I was watching something on this and thought it interesting. I was also wondering about the law suits that would soon come in. You know, it really never ceases to amaze me that people who broke the law continue to get all the goodies. I have a former exchange student from the Czech Republic and she’s been trying to get back here for 10 years the legal way. She said she’s considering taking a trip to Mexico and coming over the border like everyone else.
As long as they contact ICE before they begin their state level programs and as long as they stay within the current laws that are on the books, states have every legal right to enforce immigration laws. They also can get federal funding and personnel support and training from the federal gov’t for this.
“Federalism” folks. Smaller government, better results. Proofs in the pudding now for Washington and the ever loving tax-increase-big government Democrats (and unfortunately some Republicans). However, we can vote out the RINO’s if necessary. Give control back to the States and let them figure out what to do. JUST SECURE THE BORDER!!!!!! That is all we ask.
Most of us who live in AZ doubt it will be enforced. She was kind of dragged into signing it. And we have a couple other Props that are not being enforced at all…
Unfortunately they will just go somewhere else, that doesn’t enforece the law.
Kudos to AZ for taking matters into their own hands. Hopefully, the rest of the nation will follow suit and start enforcing existing laws before any talk of amnesty etc.
All,
Brad Henry Dem, Gov of Oklahoma did something similar to this. The State Legislature wrote Bill and it takes effect Nov 2007. The Bill passed 84-14 The State House, The State Senate it passed 41-6. House Bill 1804, Oklahoma Taxpayer and Citizen Protection Act of 2007. Gov Henry signed it into law May 2007. Gov Henry called this a landmark Bill, he doesn’t think the states can fix the immigration problem in this country, he thinks the Feds have to but he said the winners in this Bill are the people of Oklahoma.
There is alot in this Bill no driver license for undocumented people, if you go to jail they automatically look to see if you are a legal citizen. This address employers too, new verification rules, fraudulent documents indentification unit at the Dept of Safety.
A Federal Senator from Oklahoma that added 10 pages to the Immigration Bill that got defeated “Shamnesty” Senator Tom Corburn. It was both Rep Senators from Oklahoma, that voted against the so called Immigration reform Bill.
I really don’t believe that The Invasion of our country is a partisan issue.
DarkKnight … from your SFGate link:
“But Feng, an unemployed wife and mother of two grown daughters, promised she’d be back. She has no health insurance and said she suffers from high cholesterol, lower back pain and neck pain. She said she spends upwards of $300 a month to see doctors and purchase medication and Chinese herbs to help soothe her pain.”
If this woman spends $300 a month on doctors on medication … why can’t she buy health insurance?
Mr. Pearce, please run for the US Senate and help us unseat one of AZ’s RINOs.
I have it on very good authority that Napolitano really did much of NOTHING to make this happen, other than sign the bill that she had to sign. She did not support it, she didn’t want to sign it. Read between the lines, she’s already telling us how bad it is.
Lets not give her too much credit.
Thanks Republican Rep. Russell Pearce of Mesa.
I hope he doesn’t run for the senate…
You don’t get elected to the White House by being a Senator…
You do, however, do it from the House…
All,
Here is Oklahoma’s landmark Bill 1804 Signed into Law in May 2007. Gov Brad Henry (D)
http://www.kotv.com/news/local/story/?id=126684
RagingRep. I thought recently that a federal judge ruled against a small town citing that local and state gov. cannot enforce federal laws ?
The town next to mine passed a law or ordinance making employers and landlords
accountable.Everyone who’s anyone filed a law suit. Still waiting.
How would it benefit lawmakers to pass a law just to cripple their own economy to prove a point ? Seems somewhat drastic.I going to have to give them the benefit of the doubt .
Who did all these jobs before the massive influx of illegals ?
NC has a large immigrant population. Locally we’ve had auto accidents and murders (killing themselves or each other) and illegitimate births (names published as single female or two unrelated), etc. There is no way to know who is here legally, but our liberal newspaper editor said “That’s not our problem. It belongs to the federal government”. States should have more power. NC would have to clean up its act first.
The pro-illegal feds will probably take this route.
I don’t think it is “just to” cripple their economy. If we arrest employed child molesters and other criminals, it isn’t “just to” cripple the economy.
High school kids, blacks, highly paid Americans, such as in the construction industry pre-invasion. The invasion is creating a new third world economy in the US of car detailing, landscaping, etc., that we really don’t need anyway.
Subsidizing non-competitive businesses with illegal labor is the most expensive way to accomplish this as the taxpayer has to pay for jackpot babies’ obstetrics, education, new schools, the increased infrastructure for the burgeoning population, etc., etc. If we want to subsidize non-competitive businesses, it would be far cheaper to directly transfer taxes from taxpayers to these businesses.
There is a town in Texas- Farmers Branch that passed legislation they really had no choice it is that bad. Yes there are already people lining up to try and overturn the law..I read a sign the other day in Lewisville, Defense of Illegal Immigration here. I will go take a photo if anyone wants a look…they were advertising their specialty? Lewisville,Texas is called Little Mexico.
This is a good start, but certainly leaves it up to the employers to be enforcing the laws that should be the responsibility of the federal gov. to enforce, this is why we pay tazes, right.
if you remember the raid on the meat packing plant in the upper NW. now unions are involved on behalf of some of those workers, then you have ACLU issues (discrimination) that employers will now bare the burden of the expenses because again, the feds are completely inept in protecting its lawful citizens and businesses.
I don’t understand why Prop 200 was left alone in AZ but Prop 187 was overturned here in CA. Ok, I do understand and it frustrates me all the more, but I wish the weaselly Republicans here would revive it. Of course, with the Dem majority, it’s high unlikely it would go anywhere, but it sure would revive faith in the CA Rep party. What more could they do than call us racists again? And why should it bother us when they’ve been calling us racist for any little thing anyway?
Kudos, AZ. Now if you can just find a new Senator…
Although it will be fought, this is well thought out legislation.
What I want to know is if they catch Wal-Mart (for example) hiring illegals twice… do they shut down all of them in AZ, or are business licences on a location by location basis.
To those who might like to see an example of “short and to the point” legislation you can view the Arizona legislatures website and see HB 2779 at the following link: http://www.azleg.gov/FormatDocument.asp?inDoc=/legtext/48leg/1r/summary/h.hb2779_06-20-07_astransmittedtogovernor.doc.htm
None of the ridiculous reams of paper the Senate presented as “shamnesty”.
Napolitano has done a good thing for AZ in this instance. Dems everywhere else and Arizona’s RINO senators would do well to follow her example.
“Now that amnesty is dead, locals must act against employers.”
If the employers don’t swing, it’s got no ring.
If the employers don’t hang, it’s got no bang.
If the employers don’t do jail, we won’t hail.
If the employers walk, we will talk.
“I signed it, too, out of the realization that the flow of illegal immigration into our state is due to the constant demand of some employers for cheap, undocumented labor”
Of course these plantation owners would much prefer slaves but Lincoln, Grant, Sherman and others kind of put a stop to that, so they go for serfs (slavery light).
And Jorge Arbusto, the anti-Lincoln, aids, abets and facilitates them.
Time will tell. As we’ve seen having the law is all well and fine but without enforcement it means squat.
I’ve a feeling that if Prop. 187 was revived today, it’d pass AGAIN.
The law breaking employers should hire the jihad doctors to pick their lettuce. They go together like peas and carrots. Both are enemies of the state.
/s/
jose
As an Arizona resident, I can guarantee you that Napolitano did NOT want to sign this bill. She has been talking out of both sides of her mouth regarding illegals her entire tenure as Governor. She has made so many statements regarding the need for employer sanctions that she could not find a legitimate reason to veto. She wants to call the legislature back for a Special fall session to “fix” some of what she calls “problems” with the bill, however I doubt it will happen.
Just read on another site that Michelle’s site banned from government pc’s (even during employee free time) because of “hate speech”. True? Let’s take this one step at a time. We already did step 1…big step…defeated flawed amnesty bill. Step 2 …work together to enact homeland security protection of our borders and funding thereof. Step 3 ..secure ID cards and employer sanctions.
Hold our politicians feet to the fire. We will prevail!
They need to be careful….that’s all
I LOVE it! Course, in my state, they’ll probably pass Statewide Sanctuary in the next legislative term. The people will protest, but won’t vote them out. The governor will veto the bill, but do an end-run and put sanctuary in administratively. The only sanctions here will be against any citizen who uses the words “illegal alien” as opposed to “undocumented worker.” Maybe I should consider moving to Arizona.
In Colorado, last year’s Republican controlled legislature forced some tough measures for tamper proof state ID and drivers licenses. Then, this year’s Democratic controlled legislature passed a bill basically reversing everything done the year before and making in possible to get a license with easily forgible documentation. Ostensibly, it was done so that “homeless vets” could get the state ID they needed to qualify for benefits, but it was really pretty much of a screen to let illegals “come out of the shaddows,” although of course, that was never admitted to. A lot of people were enraged and lobbied the governor who did veto the bill on the last possible day. Of course, what he didn’t say at the time was that he’d already directed the Department of Motor Vehicles to adopt all of the provisions in the law using his administrative powers prior to issuing the veto. Pretty crafty, eh? Now people are aware of what he’s done and complaining but I don’t think he cares. It’s completely frustrating. Pols almost seem to refuse to represent the citizens of their jurisdictions. They represent special intersts, pushing their own agendas, and individual citizens be damned.
limmo - “Ostensibly, it was done so that “homeless vets” could get the state ID they needed to qualify for benefits”
Placing “Homeless vets” in quotes is right.
Not all “homeless vets” are even homeless and most are not vets.
feralcat-
Exactly. And, two of the forms which can now be used (or at least submitted) are insurance documents and local leases. Homeless people have insurance and leases? Not our fathers’ homelessness, eh?
Finally. We are the United States of America in more than name. Each state reserves the right of self defense and if the federals will not do it, the states have a National Guard and Militia to enforce borders and keep domestic tranquility. About time!
Hope they have better luck in Arizona with their efforts, and with their Prop 200 than we here in California did with our Prop. 187.
187 was passed by an overwhelming majority of Californians, then dumped as “un-constitutional” by a liberal judge. Truly, this whole history of this issue is the Will of the People vs. The Political Class.
Reading some of the comments from leathan and limmo, it’s obvious that we can not look to the states for collective enforcement of the law. There must be some kind of federal mandate to protect the borders - even if we have to cut the states out of the enforcement loop alltogether.
It may go against the idea of “federalism” but when the options are little or no enforcement vs. a federalizing and even militarizing the border, I’ll take the latter in the Age of Terror.
Rick, there is not going to be much federal government level enforcement as long as Jorge Arbusto is el Presidente.
Whe it comes to politics - and consequently our future - the media is where my personal focus remains, because the facts mean not a thing of they aren’t disseminated accurately.
Accordingly, I find the reporting of this story irksome to say the least: the emphasis is on the Democratic Governor who only signed it, but is doing all the talking - at least the way it’s reported, and the Republican lawmaker who created it appears as barely a footnote. That should be revesed entirely, so the story starts out about the Republican lawmaker who worked hard to create it, and quotes him at length, with a following paragraph like, “Democratic Governor Napolitano, who favored the so-called amnesty bill which went down in flames last week due to a severe backlash from a majority of the American public, signed the bill into law, but with hesitation despite recognizing the need to put into law just such a bill.”
To paraphrase Al Gore, it’s the media, stupid. The media, media, media. That’s where the battleground is, and conservatives cannot win until the media as it stands is dealt some kind of significant blow that wakes this country up.
The FACTS of the story are very good news indeed, of course, despite the upside-down approach to the reporting.
Exactly. Look at how well Chertoff is dedicating himself to doing -his- job. Couple that with the intimidation tactics by Sutton against our own Border Agents and you have an effective lack of initiative to enforce our laws.
I heard Sutton on Hannity this afternoon (guest host). He was trying to say the two agents covered up the incident about shooting at that drug smuggler, and he blamed the beating in prison the one agent suffered on the “publicity the agents’ families brought to the case”… Nothing like blaming the victim, huh??
I read something from Victor Davis Hanson today on the illegal immigration issue. I decided to post about it, since he puts into words a lot of what I’ve been thinking.
Two words: Pre-existing Condition.
Ten days??????????
This sounds like another example of “speak loudly, but don’t carry a stick” on the part of Gov. Napolitano. Seeing that she is a Democrat, this comes as no surprise.
Of course this just displaces the problem but when millions of additional illegals swamp the “sanctuary States”, clog up their schools and hospitals it will force them to redefine their priorities concerning criminal immigration and their liberal social services.
As a proud “Okie” I’ll tell you that Governor Henry wasn’t a fan of this our bill but he signed it along with more restrictions on abortion. Of course an Oklahoma Democrat is still more conservative than a lot of Republicans from elsewhere.
Ten days for the first offense. Forever for the second. Ten days of lost revenues could very well be enough of a deterrent for some small businesses that employ illegals. The threat of losing your business through a permanent loss of your license on the second offense I think should be enough to deter any first-time-caught offenders from re-offending…
Most states don’t have the cajones like Arizona. If federal laws are not passed, more states will become sanctuary states.
Enforcement is key. This law is strict enough to foster change, but there is no guarantee it will be enforced.
They are talkin’ the talk in AZ, will they actually walk?
This is a positive step toward respecting those immigrants who legally enter this country. There are many out there that support the crackdown, because they have family members who are in the pipeline waiting their turn. I hope AZ enforces this. If they don’t, I hope the their citizens replace those politicians with ones that will respect and enforce the rule of law.
I wonder who will be more upset about this - the illegal aliens or the RINO’s who think we should pander to them (because pandering is easier than than convincing them of conservative ideas that RINO’s don’t really believe in anyway …).