Thread: AZ: Bill restricts contracts to E-Verify employers

Bill restricts contracts to E-Verify employers
Howard Fischer

PHOENIX — Companies that don’t check the legal status of new workers could not get government contracts or assistance under legislation approved Tuesday by the Senate Appropriations Committee.

The move, part of a comprehensive rewrite of the state’s new employer-sanctions law, is designed to provide incentives for the approximately 150,000 firms that do business here to actually use the federal government’s E-Verify system.

While the 2007 law mandates companies sign up to use the database, there is no penalty for failure to comply. Instead, the law, which took effect Jan. 1, provides some legal protection for employers against being prosecuted for knowingly hiring undocumented workers.

The result is that fewer than 25,000 companies have signed up.

Rep. Russell Pearce, R-Mesa, said he originally wanted to force the issue by denying companies the right to deduct their employee payroll expenses from their state income taxes.

But forcing companies to pay higher taxes ran into a potential conflict with federal law, which generally precludes states from imposing certain kinds of penalties on firms that violate immigration laws, he said.

Pearce said he expects the new version of the bill to be challenged, just as companies already are trying to get a federal judge to void the existing law.

“I’m not going to give them an open door,â€

Under the terms of SB 1374, companies that don’t use the federal database to ensure all new workers are in this country legally would be ineligible for any public contracts — state, local or school district. The same condition applies to subcontractors.

They also would be ineligible for government grants, loans or any economic development incentives.

The 2007 law says firms that knowingly hire undocumented workers can have all licenses to do business suspended for up to 10 days; a second violation within three years results in permanent loss of licenses.

This is great step! This should be the law nation wide!