Sanctions law has potential loophole
Firms punished for hiring entrants could reorganize
Becky Pallack

Under Arizona’s tough new employer-sanctions law, businesses caught hiring illegal workers could lose their business licenses.

Until they get new ones.

In an overlooked aspect of the law, it appears there’s little to stop a business that has had its licenses revoked from reorganizing and resuming operation with different licenses.

The level of difficulty depends on which of more than 60 state agencies issued the business its licenses and how those agencies’ license databases work.

Representatives of the Arizona Department of Revenue and Arizona Corporation Commission said their agencies would either be obliged to issue a new license or would be unlikely to catch previously sanctioned businesspeople, despite the law. The state Registrar of Contractors, on the other hand, may be equipped to catch violators and required to deny them licenses.

That’s not how the law is intended to work for those whose licenses are revoked, said Rep. Russell Pearce,R-Mesa, who wrote the law.

“You lose your right to do business in the state,â€