Thread: Brown Co. to take up issue of illegal alien hiring

Posted April 30, 2007


Brown Co. to take up issue of illegal alien hiring

Board to discuss amending state statutes on immigrants

By Tony Walter
twalter@greenbaypressgazette.com


Brown County’s elected leaders might be joining the city’s Green Bay’s campaign to crack down on businesses that hire illegal immigrants.


The county’s Legislative Subcommittee voted Monday to have Corporation Counsel John Jacques prepare a resolution aimed at amending state statutes and letting Brown County regulate the employment of undocumented workers in restaurants.

“It’s baby steps,” said Supervisor Andy Nicholson, who drafted the resolution proposal. “It’s a national and state issue that is filtering down to the local level. We have to do something.”

The resolution is expected to be on the County Board’s agenda for its May 16 meeting.

This comes as the city’s Advisory Committee prepares to discuss a proposal to revise the city code to prohibit issuance of licenses and permits to illegal immigrants, and to prohibit businesses from employing them.

“What Andy is doing is sending a message out that something has to be done,” said Supervisor Tom DeWane.

Nicholson said he is confident that state legislators will take the proposal seriously.

Ed Wendorff, legal counsel for the regulation and licensing division of the state Department of Health and Family Services, said the state licensing doesn’t address citizenship.

“Our rules relate to cleanliness,” said Wendorff. “We don’t regulate employment. We set health and safety standards. But they can make any proposal they want to make and the Legislature might ask for our input.”

Jim Kaplanek, environmental health supervisor for the regulation and licensing division, said Monday that he knows of no other county in the state that has sought statutory authority to regulate employment of undocumented workers.


http://www.greenbaypressgazette.com/app ... 07/GPGnews

theres them words agian


"might be joining"

Brown County Committee Passes on Immigrant Worker Issue

May 7, 2007 08:53 PM PDT

By Adam Aaro and Emily Matesic and Adam Aaro

The Executive Committee of the Brown County Board of Supervisors is not moving forward on an immigration policy just yet. Members of the committee discussed a proposed resolution Monday which would ask the State to let Brown County better regulate the hiring of undocumented workers.

Currently, the county can only cite restaurants for cleanliness and sanitation, not their hiring policies. Licensing of restaurants comes from individual cities and towns; county officials don't have the ability to regulate the illegal immigrant workers.

So the county drafted a resolution asking the state government for the ability to broaden its licensing power.

Specifically, the resolution asks for legislation to be "introduced and enacted for delegating statutory authority to county government to regulate the employment of undocumented workers in licensed restaurants."

But the Executive Committee spent just 15 minutes discussing the issue. All members appeared to be against not only voting on the issue but against the resolution itself.

"There's a lot of questions to be answered and we'll see what the answers come out at," Jack Krueger said before the meeting. He's chair of the executive committee.

Other supervisors questioned whether the illegal-immigrant worker issue is even something that should be dealt with on the local level.

"I don't think that we can supercede any federal law anyway. We don't have any jurisdiction over this. Even if we recognize there are possibly some illegals in some of these businesses we don't have any jurisdiction over them," Kathy Johnson said.

Two supervisors felt county funds could be spent more wisely.

"We need to be going after the people who are involved in criminal activity, that type of thing. People who are working, making a living, and being productive, there's also things out there for employers to work with those individuals that actually help them become of legal status," Steve Fewell argued.

Pat Evans agreed, "When people are using fake Social Security numbers to obtain welfare benefits, when people are coming here committing crimes being sent to our jail, that's where we need to be focusing. When you have people that are actually working and producing dollars and good for the community, we have to start asking ourselves do we as a county have the funds to be going after that issue."

In the end, the committee decided to send the resolution back to the legislative subcommittee for review. That means this resolution will not yet be voted on by the county board. The vote was unanimous.

Krueger said he understands the concerns of residents and the Green Bay city council, and thinks there is a problem, but he wants to make sure all questions are answered before moving ahead.

"My own opinion is, at this point I'm not ready to forge ahead with making a recommendation that we do something without it being in harmony with the state and federal government," he said.

http://www.wbay.com/Global/story.asp?S=6481431