City gets tough on business licensing


By KIPP HANLEY
jhanley@potomacnews.com
Saturday, September 8, 2007

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Starting this week, the city of Manassas upped its requirements to obtain a business license.

From Labor Day on, those contractors and subcontractors who want to do business in the city will need to provide one of 10 documents that establish both identity and residency status in the United States, or two of 16 documents that establish both identity and residency status.

The requirements were taken from the I-9 form that employers use when hiring. That means in order to obtain a license, a contractor must provide two forms of identification such as a driver's license and Social Security card or a U.S. passport, a permanent resident card or unexpired foreign passport (or one of the seven others on the list of 10).

In the past, the city only required that contractors or subcontractors come to the office to fill out an application, which included a line for a Social Security number. Those subcontractors who are located outside the city who do under $25,000 of work in a calendar year are exempt from having to obtain a business license and corporations have a different set of requirements, said John Grzejka, Manassas commissioner of the revenue.

Those subcontractors that are based in the city and do less than $25,000 of work are still required to get a business license, said Grzejka.

Manassas Park started the same verification practice last fall after receiving an opinion from Commonwealth Attorney General Robert F. McDowell stating that it was within a jurisdiction's right to require these forms for a business license.

The opinion specifically states that "federal and state laws prohibit a commissioner of revenue from issuing a local business license to an applicant who is not legally present in the United States." Under the federal Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986, "an illegal alien cannot lawfully be employed in the United States." The Immigration Act also established an extensive "employment verification system" which requires a person or entity to check for documentation like a Social Security card or U.S. passport.

The opinion was sought by Calvin C. Massie Jr., Campbell County commissioner of the revenue, who informed fellow commissioners of the news at an conference for Virginia commissioners of the revenue last summer.

Massie said he received a strong backlash against the opinion from some of the commissioners, citing everything from a lack of proper training for identifying possible fraudulent documents to adding too much to the current workload.

In reality, Manassas Park has had very little difficulty with the adoption of its new policy, said Debra Wood, the city's commissioner of the revenue. While people have expressed a wide range of opinions to the city about the policy, it has not significantly affected the department's workload, said Wood.

"We haven't had a whole lot of people unable to comply and it hasn't been a loss of money for us," Wood said.

Massie said he would like to see jurisdictions be required to use these verification methods, and both Massie and Grzejka said they hope the state would be able to provide more extensive training on how to detect fraudulent paperwork.

Currently, Manassas' hiring practices for city positions include using a pamphlet that illustrates examples of everything from driver's licenses to alien registration receipt cards.

Both Grzejka and Massie said that isn't enough.

"I don't want to operate in ignorance," said Massie. "You want to know that you made a good faith effort."

Late last year, Massie pursued the issue all the way to the General Assembly. The House of Delegates ultimately passed House Bill 3130, prohibiting the issuance of a business license to any individual who cannot provide legal documents proving such individual is legally eligible to be employed or to work in the United States. However, after successfully going through the House, the bill was left in the Senate finance committee in February of this year.

Grzejka said the recent escalation of outrage over illegal immigration in the community was one reason for the city to adopt this policy. Also, Grzejka said he didn't initially act on the decision last summer because he wanted to avoid any potential legal entanglements on top of the ongoing Department of Justice investigation into the city's rescinded resolution on the definition of families.

The definition limited the term "family" to include immediate family, grandparents, grandchildren and one non-related person.

However, many people felt that this ordinance, passed in 2005, was targeting those in the Hispanic community, and it was quickly thrown off the books.

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