Thread: ILLEGALS REMAIN IN BUSINESS

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Illegals remain in business

Toothless Tenn. immigration laws defy crackdown efforts

By Daniel Connolly

Sunday, January 13, 2008

Since Jan. 1, Tennessee has had the power to suspend the business licenses of companies that knowingly hire illegal immigrants, but the law is largely symbolic.

There are only a handful of inspectors to carry out investigations statewide. And companies are off the hook if they they can show that illegal immigrant employees gave them fake work authorization documents, a common practice. They're also protected if they check documents through a federal database.

But employers will be watching as the Tennessee legislature takes up immigration issues later this year. Lawmakers following public sentiment against illegal immigration will likely propose a variety of new restrictions, including requiring jails to check inmates' legal status and blocking employers from receiving tax credits for wages paid to illegal immigrants. Details on some proposals are unclear because lawmakers haven't filed the bills yet.

A lobbyist representing industries that rely heavily on immigrant labor says his group may seek to limit the impact of these laws on businesses.

The actions at the Tennessee legislature reflect how state and local governments are struggling to deal with a lack of a coherent federal policy on illegal immigration.

The federal government has invested heavily in border security, but business groups that rely on immigrant labor have successfully blocked many enforcement measures in the interior of the country. Though deportations are up, the government tolerates illegal immigrants in some ways.

For instance, illegal immigrants can still file federal income taxes without fear of deportation.

Efforts to overhaul immigration law have failed for the past two years in Congress, and most observers don't expect any significant federal immigration legislation in this election year.

In the meantime, states are acting on their own. Legislation against illegal immigrants went into effect recently in Arizona and Oklahoma, and Tennessee legislators introduced several measures against illegal immigration last year.

One of the most significant was House Bill 729, introduced by Rep. John Hood, D-Murfreesboro, and backed in the Senate by Bill Ketron, R-Murfreesboro.

Originally, the bill would have made knowingly employing an illegal immigrant a felony punishable by a $10,000 fine. Ketron said an attorney general's opinion found that this would conflict with federal law, and lawmakers moved to a civil sanctions approach that could potentially suspend business licenses.

Ketron said business interests didn't oppose the bill, but Hood said lawmakers made many changes after lobbying by industry groups.

"We opposed that bill as it was introduced and worked really hard with the sponsors in the House and the Senate to make it a better bill, make it something that was acceptable to the employer community," said Dan Haskell, a lobbyist who chairs the Tennessee Jobs Coalition, an umbrella group representing industries including agriculture, construction, and hospitality.

In the version that became law, the penalty for a first offense is suspension of the license until the company can prove its employees are here legally. The state can suspend the license for one year for a second offense or violations thereafter.

By focusing sanctions on employers who "knowingly" hire illegal immigrants, Tennessee's new law duplicates a federal law that's proven difficult to enforce. Many illegal immigrants simply buy fake documentation on the black market and present it to employers. Under federal law and the new state law, businesses don't have to confirm the documents are real.

Haskell said companies can easily be duped by fake identification and shouldn't be punished when illegal immigrants are discovered. He said his group is likely to oppose some bills in this legislative session.

The new law provides no additional funding for enforcement. There are only 13 inspectors statewide in the unit that will enforce the law, the labor standards division of the state Department of Labor and Workforce Development, said Millissa Reierson, a spokeswoman for the agency. These inspectors also handle child labor complaints and violations of wage law, she said.

"It wound up not as strong a bill as it started out to be, with the various changes we made, with the various groups that had concerns about it," said Hood, the bill's sponsor.

"But at least it was better than what we had before, which namely was nothing. It was a beginning, I'll put it that way."

Advocates for immigrants still don't like the restrictions. Stephen Fotopulos, policy director of the Tennessee Immigrant and Refugee Rights Coalition, said there's a possibility that nervous employers will simply kick out all immigrant workers.

"That is our concern with any of these employer sanction laws, that employers in a sort of reactive fashion will discriminate against anyone who's foreign-born," he said.

So far, it's unclear how the state will enforce the law. The new law says investigations can start when government employees or others file complaints. As of Friday, no one had done so, Reierson said.

Business license law

Key provisions:

Employers accused of knowingly hiring illegal immigrants can face sanctions from the Tennessee Department of Labor and Workforce Development. Firms have the right to an administrative hearing.

Punishments are a temporary suspension on the first offense until the firm can show its workers are here legally, and a one-year suspension on the second offense or offenses thereafter.

Firms won't be punished if they can prove illegal immigrant workers gave them fake documents or that they used a federal database to check documents.

- Daniel Connolly: 529-5296
Scripps Lighthouse

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http://www.commercialappeal.com/news/20 ... -business/

Matthew 5:44

We opposed that bill as it was introduced and worked really hard with the sponsors in the House and the Senate to make it a better bill, make it something that was acceptable to the employer community," said Dan Haskell, a lobbyist who chairs the Tennessee Jobs Coalition, an umbrella group representing industries including agriculture, construction, and hospitality.

Sounds like a bad omen for the law with potential loopholes--big business doesn't care about the law, only profits. Why not confer with other states rather than a lobbyist working for agriculture, construction and hospitality businesses? Is like having the fox design the chicken coop.

The real name of the town is Toothless, Tenn? That's as cute as Ding Dong, Texas

Those 'undocumented' are actually 'highly documented' with fraudulent documents our government readily accepts.