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Sunday, 10/01/06

State law bars illegal workers on contracts
Employers argue immigration rules just political ploy

By NAOMI SNYDER
Staff Writer


Everyone from road builders to food vendors who do business with the state of Tennessee must pledge starting today that they don't knowingly hire illegal immigrants on state contracts.

The combined effect of a new state law and an executive order signed by Gov. Phil Bredesen this month means state contracts starting this week will include anti-illegal immigration language, a provision that could affect about 2,500 contracts a year and millions of dollars in state work.

Critics say the new rules are nothing more than election-year politicking — lots of hot air with little impact. The state hasn't decided exactly how it will enforce the new rules, leaving at least one contractors' group wondering what comes next and how invasive the new rules will be.

"I can't argue that there's any problem with the state asking people to attest that they aren't knowingly hiring illegal immigrants," said Bob Pitts, the senior policy adviser for the Middle Tennessee chapter of Associated Builders and Contractors Inc. "The devil's in the details."

Other employers don't think the state's new rules or Bredesen's order have a lot of teeth.

Employers already are required by federal law to get documents from new hires proving they are eligible for work in the United States, and they must keep those records on file.

"We already have numerous laws that cover that,'' said Jim Holland, president of staffing and human resources outsourcing agency, The Holland Group in Murfreesboro. "A state bureaucrat coming in and auditing personnel records is unfortunate at the least. I think it is overkill."

A spokesman for Bredesen said the governor was reacting to inaction by Congress.

"The state has to do something where the federal government hasn't acted," said the governor's spokesman, Bob Corney.

Also, the state legislature passed a bill this year that goes into effect in January requiring all contractors to attest they aren't knowingly using illegal immigrants on state contracts and that they aren't knowingly using subcontractors who do.

Bredesen added a few provisions in a Sept. 5 executive order, including giving the state the authority to randomly check, or audit, personnel files of state contractors.

New contracts will start including wording about the changes this week. It normally takes two months or more before those contracts actually go into effect. Anyone who violates the law won't be allowed to get a state contract for one year.

Robert Lea is assistant commissioner for the state Department of Finance and Administration, which is charged with promulgating the rules. He said no decision has been made on how many audits will be conducted each year, how they'll be conducted, and whether the state needs more staff to do the work.

Keith Pyle, president of Ray Bell Construction Co., one of the largest contractors in the state, said he doesn't expect any problems for his company.

"Obviously, we've never knowingly hired illegal immigrants or even after the fact, found we've hired illegal immigrants,'' he said. "The operative word here is knowingly. That's acceptable to us."

Lea admits that proving someone knowingly hired illegal workers might be tough.

"We're hoping we're providing some preventive medicine,'' Lea said. "We're putting contractors on notice. We intend to do business with those who don't hire illegal immigrants."

The debate over illegal immigration is rampant nationally. Politicians in Tennessee and elsewhere have been spending lots of time trying to show voters they're doing something about it.

Tennessee had an estimated 100,000 to 150,000 illegal immigrants last year, according to the Pew Hispanic Center. The entire population of legal and illegal immigrants has grown about 43 percent between 2000 and 2004, according to the center, one of the top growth rates in the nation.

Nationwide, the number of illegal immigrants in the country has grown at an average of about 408,000 per year, reaching about 11 million in 2006, according to the federal government's Office of Immigration Statistics.

Bredesen committed Tennessee National Guard troops to patrol the border with Mexico earlier this year, following criticism by Republicans that he wasn't doing enough on the issue.

His Republican opponent in the November gubernatorial election, Jim Bryson, has accused Bredesen of making Tennessee a mecca for illegal aliens.

Bryson earlier this year stood at a press conference next to a woman whose parents were killed in a car accident blamed on an illegal immigrant.

At least 32 other states have passed bills on immigration and related issues through August this year, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.

About 550 bills were enacted over the same time period, the most since the conference started tracking such things in 1992.

Contractors with the state of Colorado are required to use a voluntary federal program to verify the work-status of new hires. Idaho made workers' compensation and unemployment insurance available only to authorized workers and U.S. citizens.

"States feel frustrated, particularly states that feel like they're bearing a burden,'' said Daniel Kanstroom, a Boston College immigration law professor.

Ferrel Guillory, a professor at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, thinks the roots of the legislation go deeper.

"The South, for almost all of its history, was defined by the relationship of white people to black people and black people to white people,'' said the co-author of the biennial "The State of the South" report on the region and its leadership.

"The South has been all shook up by the advancement of the Latino population across the South. We are shifting from a biracial to a multiracial region,'' he said. "It's not surprising there are political repercussions."