Published: 12.21.2007

BULLETIN: Appeals court won't block employer-sanctions law
By Howard Fischer
CAPITOL MEDIA SERVICES
The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals refused late Friday to issue a stay preventing Arizona's new employer-sanctions law from going into effect Jan. 1. The move came just hours after a federal judge in Phoenix rejected a request by business groups and others to block the state from enforcing its new employer sanctions law.
Judge Neil Wake said any delay in implementing the law which allows suspension or revocation of state licenses of companies that knowingly hire undocumented workers would harm the state and, in particular, legal Arizona residents.
"Those who suffer the most from unauthorized alien labor are those whom federal and Arizona law most explicitly protect,'' Wake said.
"They are the competing lawful workers, many unskilled, low-wage, sometimes near or under the margin of poverty, who strain in individual competition and in a wage economy depressed by the great and expanding number of people who will work for less,'' the judge continued.
"If the act is suspended, whether for a month or for years, the human cost for the least among us, measured by each person's continued deprivation, multiplied by their number, will be a great quantum.''
Conversely, Wake said the challengers to the law have not proven they will suffer any sort of hardship if the law takes effect as scheduled Jan. 1.
He pointed out the county attorneys who would investigate complaints against employers all said in court they would not file charges against any violators before Feb. 1. Wake said that gives him time to consider the legal arguments of the groups who contend the statute is unconstitutional.
Nor was Wake convinced companies will suffer from the other requirement of the law that they check the legal status of new employees through the federal government's E-Verify system. He said their attorneys offered only "sweeping generalities'' of harm, mostly related to the cost of using the program.
He pointed out that none of the groups that actually sued claim they don't have a computer or Internet access.
"The only cost is employee time in learning the program ... and assisting new employees who wish to communicate with the federal government to resolve out-of-date government records,'' Wake wrote in his 29-page order. "That would be a few hundred to a few thousand dollars a year for the large majority of employers.''
Wake acknowledged there is a debate in this country about whether the benefits of having undocumented workers in this country, including lower labor expenses for employers, outweigh the costs.
But he said that is a decision not for him but instead for elected officials. And he said both Congress and now the Arizona Legislature have decided that the detrimental effects of illegal immigration "prevail over all who benefit from unauthorized alien labor.''

http://www.azstarnet.com/sn/printDS/217304