Arizona guest-worker bill dies without a floor vote
By Howard Fischer
Capitol Media Services
Tucson, Arizona | Published: 06.28.2008
PHOENIX — Arizona will not get a chance to set up its own guest-worker program.
State lawmakers adjourned the session late Friday without bringing the proposal to the floor for a vote. Senate Minority Leader Marsha Arzberger, D-Willcox, acknowledged that she did not have the votes.
SB 1508 would have allowed companies that could not find workers in this country to recruit them instead in Mexico.
Arzberger said Arizona firms already were suffering from a lack of qualified workers before the employer-sanctions law took effect in January, because the federal government does not provide enough temporary work visas.
The sanctions law allows a judge to suspend the state licenses of a business found guilty of knowingly hiring illegal immigrants.
Arzberger said the inability to replace workers run off by the sanctions law "puts us in the economic cellar."
Rep. Russell Pearce, R-Mesa, questioned that assumption, citing the state's rising unemployment rate.
"It's a slap in the face, at a time we're laying off American workers, to want to import more foreign workers," he said.
Pearce said he was willing to consider a guest-worker program for agriculture, given the farmers' need to harvest their crops and for Americans to have fresh produce. But he said anything else made no sense.
"I don't have to buy fast food," he said. "I don't need somebody else to wash my car."
But Rep. Bill Konopnicki, R-Safford, who co-wrote the measure, said other segments of the economy are suffering too.
He cited the testimony of the owner of a Phoenix steel fabricating firm who said he had to get rid of 12 of his 40 production workers because they could not prove they were in this country legally.
Sen. Ron Gould, R-Lake Havasu City, said the legislation lacked other safeguards. One he wanted in particular was a provision saying that children born to temporary workers while they are in this country are not entitled to claim U.S. citizenship.








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