Thread: AZ:Panel OKs proposed changes to sanctions

Published: 03.05.2008
Panel OKs proposed changes to sanctions
Legislative group works to clear up questions on law
The Associated Press

PHOENIX - A committee of the Arizona Legislature approved proposed revisions Tuesday to a law that prohibits employers from knowingly hiring illegal immigrants.
Critics said the law posed a burden to law-abiding businesses, left employers vulnerable to anonymous complaints from competitors or disgruntled workers and was unclear about whether it applied to all employees on the payroll or those hired after the law took effect Jan. 1.
The proposed changes included offering extra legal protections for businesses to follow the new rules, allowing anonymous complaints and clarifying that the law applies to only new hires this year and thereafter.
"This a fairly comprehensive approach to reach better compliance - to treat the good guy a little safer, those that are making an honest effort - and still go force compliance and go after the bad actors," said Republican Rep. Russell Pearce of Mesa, author of the law and sponsor of the proposed changes.
The 6-1 vote by the House's government committee marked the Legislature's first endorsement of the proposed revisions.
The law, intended to weaken the economic incentive for immigrants to sneak across the border, requires the suspension or revocation of business licenses of employers who knowingly hire illegal immigrants.
Opponents of the law said it would poison Arizona's business climate and cracking down on such hirings is the sole responsibility of the federal government.
Supporters said state punishments were needed because the federal government hasn't adequately enforced a federal law that prohibits employers from knowingly hiring illegal immigrants.
The law provides a measure of legal protection for employers who follow the law's requirement that businesses verify the employment eligibility of workers through a federal database.
A proposed change would offer greater legal protection by giving businesses the option of taking part in a compliance program that would require workers to check the work eligibility of employees through the database.
If workers couldn't be verified through the database, businesses would have to check the accuracy of Social Security numbers through the federal government.
Under the proposed changes, employers taking part in the voluntary program couldn't be prosecuted for knowingly hiring illegal immigrants if the businesses followed these and other requirements of the program.
"These amendments will help move us toward a point where law-abiding business that want to invest in Arizona can do so with far less fear that their investment will be jeopardized by an unfair enforcement of this law," said Glenn Hamer, leader of the Arizona Chamber of Commerce and Industry, which is seeking to overturn the law in court.
One of the proposed fixes would create a standardized form for making complaints, but the proposal would allow prosecutors to pursue allegations in cases where the form wasn't completed. It also would spell out that anonymous complaints are allowed.
Critics of the law worry that businesses might be unnecessarily exposed to investigations based on anonymous or frivolous complaints made by competitors or disgruntled employees.
A key unresolved issue is whether the law applies to all workers on a business' payroll or only those hired after the law took effect in January. The proposal approved Tuesday specifies that the law would apply only to new hires.
http://www.tucsoncitizen.com/daily/local/78676.php

A key unresolved issue is whether the law applies to all workers on a business' payroll or only those hired after the law took effect in January. The proposal approved Tuesday specifies that the law would apply only to new hires.

Does this mean illegal aliens currently on payroll get to keep working?