Jenkins working on business-related immigration reform
By Nicholas C. Stern
News-Post Staff

Frederick, Maryland


A spate of state and local immigration laws cropping up across the country have encouraged Frederick County Commissioner Charles A. Jenkins to move forward with a proposal to penalize local businesses for hiring illegal immigrant workers.
Two new state laws that took effect today in Tennessee and Arizona, and one set to take effect in July in Oklahoma, will suspend and possibly revoke the business licenses of any company caught hiring illegal immigrant workers.

Illegal workers would then be fired, but not directly prosecuted by state authorities.

The Arizona immigration law, which news reports have described as among the nation’s toughest, is already having the effect its authors intended, Jenkins said.

Weeks before its enactment, immigrant workers have begun leaving Arizona, and business owners have started rechecking employee paperwork and filing lawsuits that challenge the state’s authority to enforce the law.

“Quite frankly,â€