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December 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,â€